


Oklahoma

by gooligan



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-28
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-05-09 22:05:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 162,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5557271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gooligan/pseuds/gooligan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything old is new again and X-Files is coming back, so thought I'd dust off an old favorite. Think of it as fanfic Glory Days.   </p><p>Back in the mid-nineties, Amperage started the ball rolling and spear-headed this wee little fix, and she let me come along for the ride and co-write.  </p><p>For those of you who are new to this, I hope you enjoy it.  Remember, it's an old fave (twenty years!).  For those who read it before, hope you enjoy visiting an old friend of a fic.  </p><p>I'm going to repost it in pretty much the original format, with all the original notes, so forgive formatting idiosyncracies.  This one is from way back in the days of archie and veronica, before we had browsers (yes, kids, there was a time before browsers, when we did everything in ftp!).  </p><p>If you feel like reaching out and letting us know you liked it, we love feedback.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Mulder belongs to the same folks he always belonged to. Everyone else belongs to Ampy and me.

From: livengoo@tiac.net Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 1/41 Date: 21 Jan 1996 08:29:49 GMT 

Oklahoma (Part 1/41) By Amperage and Livengoo Copyright October, 1995 International Readers: No third season spoilers Rating: NC-17 for language and violence Introduction 

Hiya, folks! This is for all of you who wondered what happened to Amp after Therapy II and Goo after Corpse, not to mention the lost souls crying out for Colors. 

So, you ask, where HAVE Amp and Goo been? Home! Slaving our little fingers off writing Oklahoma. 

So what, besides the obvious, is Oklahoma? Back in January '95 Amperage ran a riveting story called The Sacrifice, in which she made passing mention of a Mulder case, years in the past, with an eviscerated child, and Mulder writing the impossible profile. It was the turning point in 1987, where VICAP and BSU overwhelmed him and hot-shot young Fox Mulder started to turn away and explore the fringes of the X-Files. 

Back in June, Amp let me get my slimy lawyer fingers on her history for Mulder, and expand on that a bit. She gave me some history and some details, and I was hooked. I wanted more and I whined for it in the classic manner. 

And then. . . . 

Amp sent along a gritty, gorgeous opening like nothing I'd seen, with an idea out of an English Lit. major's dreams - help her write Oklahoma, and brace that baby around the poems of T.S.Eliot. How could I say no? EVERYTHING went on the back burner when the new piece of Oklahoma needed to be written. And it's hot. 

If you ask me what this story's about, I'd tell you it's about transitions. Those key points when you stop being one thing and become another. In this case, it's Mulder's transition from what he was to what we see in the X-Files. And transitions from one kind of society to another, one level of awareness to another. I'm sure Amp has her own ideas of what this story's about, but she keeps her own council. 

Fair warning time. This story isn't nice and it isn't kind. It's hot and rolling, and violent and full of disturbing notions. NC-17 for violence and language, oh my yes. And if you didn't like Therapy or Corpse, I doubt you'll like Oklahoma. You've been warned. We accept flames, but personal attacks are never good netiquette. Please toss the email to Livengoo@tiac.net. So. You've been warned and you've been enticed. Just to be sure, there's a pop quiz. I hope you decide to try Oklahoma, and I hope you enjoy it. ____ It's been pointed out to me, by some of the concerned readers on the group, that it's eminently unfair of Amp and me to drop weird-o and tres disturbant concepts (not to mention truly bad Franglais) on readers all unannounced. Accordingly, I'd like you to take a pop quiz before going on to read Oklahoma. Please take the following with a grain of salt and two aspirins and call me in the morning. What you call me is up to you. 

1) Do you believe that Mulder probably did not exist before Dana Scully walked into the basement office? 2) Do you believe that Mulder grew up in a wholesome home, unexceptional but for skulking spies and aliens? 3) Do you believe that Mulder is a well-adjusted adult who happens to have some rough interpersonal skills? 4) Does all poetry have to rhyme to be any good? 5) Does Mulder ever use terms stronger than "darn" and "shucks?" 6) Did Mulder pursue the X-Files because he couldn't get a date on a Friday night? (they were all watching Picket Fences?) 7) Do serial killers, to your knowledge, on average, have profiles similar to one Fox Mulder? 8) Does Mulder always behave with propriety, in an upright and rational fashion? 9) Do you require a romantic entanglement between two individuals in virtual three-D (i.e. not a magazine!) to feel that a story is complete? 10) Did Therapy and/or Corpse aggravate or annoy you? 11) Should there be a "Psychology Included" warning along with the sex and violence warnings? If you answered "yes" to any four or more questions, you may want to reconsider and turn back now! This is a dark ride. Goo ____ Miscellany: Oklahoma is set in 1987. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the bombing. Mulder is in VICAP, and not partnered at present. Abbreviations like BVM for Blessed Virgin Mary crop up here and there. With a very, very few exceptions, poetry is T.S.Eliot, and your best source is The Complete Poems and Plays if you feel inspired. It's gorgeous stuff, so I hope at least a few of you go make a run on the bookstores. Fox Mulder and the X-Files are the creation and intellectual property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting. The FBI is the property of the US Government. Oklahoma and Louisiana and Texas belong to exactly who you think they'd belong to, and everything else belongs to Amperage and Livengoo. There are forty one pieces to this (yeah, another bandwidth hog), which should add up to more than a month's worth of entertainment at a piece a day. There's a lot of it ahead of you! We sincerely hope you understand how we love doing cliffhangers for you all, and that you choose to read it as we post it. Here we go! Oklahoma by Amperage and Livengoo Fox Mulder, FBI Special Agent, one of ten men in the Bureau who got to do the kind of work that was currently flashing up on the screen in the front of the airplane - a line of work beloved by producers and writers, BSU VICAP, to go the entire alphabetic route - was crashed in his narrow, coach class airline seat, with a thin line of drool pooling on the hand supporting his chin. Sam Rodriguez shook his head, grinned. Spooky Mulder. If the public knew the difference between someone like the movie version and someone like Spooky Mulder they'd probably run screaming into the night or demand Ed Meese resign. . . 

"What's with him?" Special Agent Cooke asked around the sleeping mass. "He's like, in a coma or something." 

"He takes Dramamine, I think." Actually he usually almost od'd on the stuff. Rodriguez frowned. 

"I've taken Dramamine and I never crashed like that," Cooke hissed back. 

Rodriguez shrugged. "I think anti-nausea drugs do that to him. Last winter, he got the flu and his doc gave him a prescription for Compazine so he could work. They had to take him to the hospital. Hallucinating, weaving, the whole nine yards. Made him crazy." 

Cooke considered Mulder's oversized frame, shook his head in disgust. "Are they sure it was the Compazine?" he asked. Rodriguez went back to the open file in his lap, reading glasses dangling off the end of his nose. 

Three bodies so far. One indian boy, one white girl and now another white girl. Weren't serial killers supposed to stick to one sex, and kill only in their own racial group? Sam frowned. He wanted to ask Mulder about that one, but Mulder was drooling away next to him. 

This latest corpse, the one they were saving for him in the Muskogee morgue. Sam turned over to the initial report. Seven years of age. Ericka Bettina Jones. Bettina? Poor kid. Found in a hayfield, body approximately two weeks old at the time of discovery. 

Oh great. A two week old body. In summertime heat. He'd need a fucking gas mask. Maggots and creepy crawlies of all descriptions running around the body too. Flies and ants and, oh this was going to be fucking great fun. Pendajos. She'd been gutted, innards taken out, stuffed with dressing, they thought, and sewn back up with catgut. Stuffed with dressing. Sam closed his eyes thinking about last year's Thanksgiving dinner with Jenni's family in Virginia. Probably Stovetop or Pepperidge farm. Fuck. And no internal organs or signs of trauma other than the great evisceration job. Wonderful. 

A few lines of poetry had been found in her pocket. "Garlic and sapphires in the mud Clot the bedded axle-tree The trilling wire in the blood Sings below the inveterate scars Appeasing long forgotten wars. The dance along the artery The circulation of the lymph Are figured in the drift of stars." 

Francis said it was from T.S. Eliot, The Four Quartets, Burnt Norton. Sam didn't have any room to argue. If the great, all mighty, eidetic memory said it was, then it fucking was. 

They'd found poems with the other two, supposedly, but the damn county Medical Examiner for the first body had tossed the poem into the trash. The second was smudged to shit before anyone ever figured out what it was. Sometimes Sam just rolled his eyes at the jobs done by GP's. 

The seatbelt light came back on. Sam put the file back in his briefcase, elbowed Mulder in the ribs until Pretty Boy woke. 

Mulder frowned, blinked, eyelashes clogged with crumbs, wiped his drooly hand. "Oklahoma City, Francis" Sam informed him, not unkindly. 

Mulder nodded disorientedly. "I was dreaming," he said softly, still out in la-la land. 

"Oh?" Sam replied. 

"Yeah." He shook himself, closed his eyes. When he opened them he was all Spooky Mulder, king of the unkindest cut, the young and coming star of Behavioral Sciences. "So. Oklahoma." He nodded, moved his tongue around in his mouth, no doubt still trying to get bits of rubber chicken out of his mouth. The plane began its downward spiral. 

"Is Jenni still cutting her little man off?" Mulder asked as they were waiting for their baggage. 

"Yeah. And the big man is about to get upset. Man, I hate this shit." Sam shook his head. "I've got balls the color of your tie. And it wasn't my fault this time." 

Mulder grinned. "Okay Frito. Let's hear it. Why'd she decide that the little general was named McArthur and needed to go back home?" 

Sam grinned at Cooke, who was somewhere between thoroughly disgusted and thoroughly confused. No wonder the guy did PR. 

"I thought you said Regional was supposed to meet us." 

"They are," Cooke replied. "I don't know. Maybe they're in the main lobby." 

"Well." Sam decided to answer Mulder. "I got sent out on the field. She thinks since I'm a pathologist that I'm supposed to stay at Quantico in my little autopsy bay and cut up bodies." 

"You know there is a cure for the frustrations of a fickle wife." Mulder's mouth crinkled up in a grin. 

Sam knew where this was going. "Yeah, but doesn't that stunt your growth?" 

Mulder surveyed his legs, torso and arms. "You mean I coulda' been *taller*? Shit. If I'd known I had a chance at being Larry Byrd I woulda' laid off the old tally-whacker." 

Sam, six inches shorter than his friend, shorter than most of the women he worked with, frowned. "Imagine where I'd be today, if I'd indulged myself." 

"Fuck; you'd be a midget." Mulder broke out laughing as he snagged his suitbag. "What about you, Cooke?" 

Cooke frowned and turned beet red. "Oh come on. Can't go around one night standing anymore," Mulder said. 

"You do, Francis," Sam said, deciding to pull the pressure off poor Cooke. 

Mulder grinned and turned. "Yeah. But I'm Spooky Mulder. I'm the self-destructive bastard who jacks up everyone's insurance premium. People just expect me not to give a shit. Well, Cooke? Do you groom the terrier? Wax the porpoise? Have long intimate dates with Mrs. Woo and her four lovely daughters?" 

Sam pulled his own suitbag off the merry go round. "Marion, leave him alone." 

Mulder pulled out his Rayban Aviators. "Don't get hyper, Frito. Just having a bit of fun. Cooke doesn't mind? Do you?" 

Cooke shrugged embarrassedly. 

"Marion," Sam began, shaking his head, "some day you're going to fun yourself into an unmarked grave and I'm going to have to do the autopsy." They found the agents. Just look for the uncomfortable guys in dark suits with bulges that don't attract a woman's glance, as Mulder had once put it. The Agent in Charge, Jack Averman, had flown down from DC last night and was with the locals already. Hell, word was he *was* a local boy done good. "How'd I get so lucky to have the Spookster?" he asked with a smile that was not a smile. 

"I get results on the unsolvable," Mulder smiled, a smile that was more a grimace. "You got an unsolvable here. There's another dead body out there somewhere already, he's already kidnapped his next victim, and they're gonna keep coming until every kid under the age of twelve has a personal escort, unless you got someone like me. I'm probably the only person here who's smarter than he is." 

He had just made three enemies. Sam grimaced. Jack Averman, who had met and worked with Mulder before, frowned. "How do you know he's already killed again and got another child?" 

"I'm Spooky, remember?" Mulder nodded. "This guy's got attention. He likes attention. Makes him produce more if he feels like he's got an audience. These deaths, real Hollywood gory. Oh yeah, the more media, the happier he is, the more dead bodies we'll see." He shifted his hang up. "Now we're going to Muskogee today so Frito can get the autopsy done and I can see the field, right?" Averman frowned. "Yeah." "Well, let's go. Who are you guys?" he addressed the other agents. When they said hello, Mulder nodded. Sam got the impression Mulder had read their dossiers last night. He knew everything about them, knew how they could be used. Averman was going to need a choke collar to keep Mulder under control. Averman, Mulder, Sam, and the RA would be going to Muskogee, based on Mulder's observations before he'd even come into the field. Enough for Sam to autopsy the body, for Mulder to talk to Mom and Dad about "sweetums" as he'd called her privately. Enough for Averman to discuss the matter with the local Sheriff. 

Then they'd head back in; Muskogee was a dead site as far as Mulder was concerned. The killer'd had his fun, time to move on. Mulder didn't even want to stop at the Regional office and Averman, to Sam's surprise, agreed. Probably didn't want Mulder alienating even *more* people. 

Stengal, the Resident Agent, drove them himself in his bucar, told them a little about finding the body. How the kids who found it had vomited all over the hayfield. Mulder hadn't really been listening, but he was quiet behind his Ray-Bans, no insulting remarks, and everyone let him be. "I was only able to get two rooms," Stengal said, apologetically. 

It woke Mulder from his contemplative state. He frowned. "Two rooms?" 

"Yeah. Rodeo's in town. Sorry. The hotels have been booked for weeks." Stengal shrugged. 

Mulder's mouth pursed up. He knew that Averman would be in one room and Mulder and Sam would be in the other. Knew that, and Sam could tell it bugged the living shit out of him. He said nothing, however, just stared out the window, went back to his quiet, staring out at the early summer sunshine and the miles and miles of nothing. 

They got to the hotel room around five. Averman took the one with the king and handed Mulder and Rodriguez the keys to the other one. Mulder said nothing, getting his two bags out of the car, juggling them with his briefcase, leaving his portable computer out in the trunk to swelter in the heat. Let Sam open the door to the room. He put his things up immediately. 

Sam considered Mulder from the bed. His suit bag was on the rack, so screw everything else. He wasn't a GQ kind of guy like Mulder, who wore and ruined designer suits the way most people used kleenex. "Hey," he tried, grinning, trying to defuse Mulder's tenseness, "I know I'm horny. But man, I don't think I could *get* that horny. Just stay on your bed and we'll be fine." 

Mulder unzipped his hang up, frowned; it was clear he wanted to say something. 

Sam frowned in return. "It's me. Frito? What? You caught a nasty and your dick's scaling like the reptilian creature it is?" 

Mulder frowned more deeply. "I don't want to keep you awake. You know how little sleep I need. I'm usually up all night." It was so obviously an excuse, Sam got off the bed he'd been sitting on, went to his friend. 

"Okay. What the fuck is going on, Marion?" 

"Nothing." Mulder grinned, trying to dispel the mood. "Nothing. You want to eat before or after the autopsy?" 

Sam wanted to ask again, but Mulder had his shields up, and nothing penetrated those muthers; Sam already knew that. 

The corpse was about as bad as Sam had figured. Ants had eaten out most of it. Fuck. There wasn't much to find. He didn't know how she'd died. He took tissue samples, cleaned out maggots, looked for trauma. Maybe he'd find something in the tissue. He doubted it. 

By the time Mulder and Averman came back with the Sheriff, he was ready to let the poor thing go rest in the quiet earth. He made a few private prayers to the BVM for the little girl's soul and left her for the locals to slip back into a body bag. 

Mulder was quiet at dinner. He wasn't working at being a horse's ass quite so diligently, and the reasons why Sam was his friend were a little more evident. Sam managed to get him to tell about something that had happened at Oxford, and even though they didn't mean too, Averman and Stengal found themselves laughing at Mulder's sexual/educational exploits. Sometimes Sam wondered why the guy hadn't become an Academic. His memories of his university days were his happiest. He'd been successful, good at the pursuit of knowledge. He was scarily good at what he did, of course, but he was a pretty miserable person. 

The meal was over and they were sitting over coffee when Averman brought the case up again. 

Sam reported his findings, engrossed in his work. When he emerged, Mulder was frowning, mind running at ninety on another track. "We need to go back and look at the other two. Talk to social services." 

Averman frowned. "What are you talking about?" 

"We were lucky that Ericka was a local. That Sheriff; he knew Ericka, felt deeply sorry for her, but not for her parents. Especially not Daddy." Mulder rubbed his jaw. "Ericka was probably sexually abused. That's the vibes he gave off. Not enough proof to do anything, but the sheriff knew or at least suspected." Mulder dug through his briefcase. "The first autopsy, Christopher Raintree. The ME found some evidence of anal trauma. He assumed it was part of the work of the killer. We haven't seen any sexual trauma on the other two so we. . . I don't think our killer is doing it." 

Averman was scribbling. "I'll get Hitchens and Bond on it," he said, antagonism gone completely. 

"Kids who are sexually molested don't wear big signs proclaiming their problem." Mulder gestured towards his own chest. 

Oh God. Sam closed his eyes. What was going on here? "We need to know if our second victim, Kimberly Slater, was molested. If all three cases were reported, then our killer may have an inside track with the law. If not, then he has some way of knowing. Child porn or swapping groups. He has to know *somehow*." 

Averman was nodding. 

Sam swallowed down his fear. "Anything else?" 

Mulder shrugged. "I need some time to digest everything." He glanced at the dessert plate. "Although that cheesecake is probably going to be with me awhile." 

They went back to their respective hotel rooms, settled in to report writing. Mulder shut everything out when he settled in with a case; Sam was used to it. Mulder just turned on the TV and shut out the world outside that case. It was like a game for him, Sam reflected, flipping through the autopsy report. A big game of guessing. 

It was midnight when Sam yawned, decided to turn in. He made a great deal of noise, changing into some shorts and an old t- shirt, brushing his teeth, pulling out a Stephen King. Mulder grinned, gathered up his notebook computer and headed for the bathroom. Sam liked the dark to sleep in. 

 

Screams. Screams. Sam's heart was pounding and he couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't remember. Screams and more screams and they were coming from here. Right *here*. He fumbled for his gun, found it. Safety off. What the hell was going on? 

Screams. Hoarse, loud, inhuman screams. He couldn't think. 

The light was on, the bathroom door was open. The screams were coming from in there. And someone was beating on his door. "What the hell is going on?" Averman. 

Sam went to the bathroom, gun up. 

Mulder was pressed in a corner, eyes wide, arms wrapped around his chest, screaming and screaming and screaming. A panicked, animal scream. The lights were on and nobody was fucking home. 

Sam heard more beating on the door. Panicked beating. Oh shit. 

Mulder's screams were still going on. 

Sam ran to the door, dropped his gun on the bed, opened the door and scurried back to the bathroom. He didn't have time to explain to Averman. By the time he got back, the screams were gone. Mulder was still huddled in his little ball, still terrified, but now he was moaning, deep sobbing moans. 

"What the fuck's happening here?" Averman asked, gun limp in his hand. 

Sam shrugged, back to Averman, kneeling on the floor as close to Mulder as he could get. "Francis? Marion? You okay? Mulder? Come on." 

Mulder closed his eyes, put his head against his knees. He still didn't know they were there. Sam felt a deep abiding fear run through him. Mulder had known this was going to happen. He'd planned to not sleep at all. That meant this had been going on. It wasn't something new. Not new at all. Oh God, please. His stomach turned over. "Francis?" He reached out, put a hand on Mulder's knee. "It's Frito." 

Mulder was crying, deep, hard sobs. Ugly sobs that shook his entire body. 

"Francis. Come on. Dream's over, man. You're okay. You're safe and it's okay." 

Mulder finally heard him, pulled his head up. "Frito?" he asked. Then he saw Averman, swallowed. "Oh shit." He couldn't stop the crying, but he was finally aware of his world and knew he'd fucked up big time. 

Averman sighed. 

"Everybody has bad dreams sometimes, man." Sam was consolatory, rubbing Mulder's back. "Come on. It's gonna be okay." 

Mulder clutched his knees, crying. He was trying desperately to stop, but it seemed to only serve to make the sobs worse. 

"Let's get you out of here and to bed." 

Mulder shook his head. 

"Come on." Averman had knelt down, was close, there was a deep abiding sympathy in his eyes, a sadness Sam hadn't known Averman had in him. "Come on." 

Mulder tried to inch away from Averman, eyes going very wide. He was just barely in the land of the sane. 

Sam swallowed, made a decision. "He's got some Dramamine in his carry on," Rodriguez informed Averman. "Get me two and a glass of water." 

Averman glanced at Rodriguez. 

"They work better than Valium on him." Sam shrugged, turned back to Mulder. "Francis, okay, it's okay. You're in a hotel room. You're safe. You're going to be okay. 

He heard the sounds of Mulder's carry on being up-ended. Of packaging being destroyed. 

"You're safe and okay. Nobody can hurt you." 

"Why did Averman have to see?" Mulder asked softly through his sobs. He couldn't breathe. "Don't worry about that right now, okay?" Water in a glass and then Averman came in, handed the pills and glass to Sam. 

"Okay, Francis. You take these, hokay?" 

Mulder wanted to refuse. 

Sam put the pills to Mulder's mouth. "Come on. You take these every time you fly. They won't hurt you. Promise. Come on." Mulder opened his mouth, Sam felt the other man's tongue as he placed both pills in Mulder's mouth. 

Then the water. It slopped down his chin, but he managed to swallow. 

"All gone. It'll get better," Sam consoled, rubbing Mulder' back gently. Sam waited with him; ten minutes seemed like ten hours while Sam made comforting sounds, trying to keep Mulder calm; the sobs grew quieter, lessened. Mulder's eyes dilated, not from fear this time, but from drugs. Sam nodded at Averman, and they got him into bed. He fell asleep as soon as he was in the bed; his body wrapped around one of the pillows. 

Averman sat on Sam's bed, watched Mulder sleep. "No wonder the guy's such a butthole." 

Sam stared at Averman, surprised. He'd expected, oh he didn't know. . .indignation, fury. Not understanding. 

"I was in the marines a long time," Averman said, running a hand through his short, salt and pepper hair, stared at his own bare legs. "Mulder's not unusual. A lot of really tough guys have nightmares. And the Bureau uses Mulder like. . .like he can see all these dead bodies and get into the minds of all these serial killers and never have problems. Every time there's a really disgusting, really unsolvable string of murders, they call in the Spooky. It's gotta get to anyone eventually. I guess the being such a butt is his way of shoving people away before they can find out he's got any problems." He sighed. "And I hate to say it, but we need him on this case. You're the medico. Think he can keep it together through this one?" 

"My patients are dead when I get to them." Sam shrugged. "I guess." 

"Oh, that's great," Averman sighed. "Such reassurance. If I report this, Mulder flies straight back to DC and gets some leave and a trip to Psych." 

"He's been okay. Nothing that I can see," Sam lied. 

"Look, I'll give him a chance to defend himself. Maybe this is isolated." 

Sam nodded. Maybe not. ________________________ Continued in part 2 

=========================================================================== 

From: livengoo@tiac.net Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 2/41 Date: 21 Jan 1996 23:51:11 GMT 

Oklahoma (Part 2/41) By Amperage and Livengoo Copyright October, 1995 

International Readers: No third season spoilers Rating: NC-17 for language and violence 

Fox Mulder and the X-Files are the creation and intellectual property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting. The FBI is the property of the US Government. Oklahoma and Louisiana and Texas belong to exactly who you think they'd belong to, and everything else belongs to Amperage and Livengoo. 

_______________________ 

Mulder swallowed, tried to get his glands to produce spit. Dried versions of the stuff were all over his lips, gummy and nasty, but there was nothing in his mouth. He was lying on a pillow and it felt late in the morning. Blink. Lots of sleep boogers coated his eyelashes. His face felt vaguely heavy. Dramamine. He clenched his eyes closed as he remembered, suddenly, what had happened last night. He put his face against the pillow. 

Oh God. He'd have to fly back to DC in the company of some regional agent and then they'd make him take some leave time. The Spooky finally cracked wide open. There'd be all these speeches in front of Thompson and everyone else about how they were sorry, that Mulder should have told them the stress was getting to him. They realized it was an incredible burden for Mulder. They'd be reassigning him to something *less* stressful. . . He moaned aloud. From somewhere a glass of water appeared. Mulder took it, sat up, drank greedily, both hands around the wide surface of the water glass, then looked at the giver. Averman. Mulder swallowed, wished he'd feigned sleep. "How're you feeling?" 

"I'm okay," Mulder managed. 

"How long has this been going on?" 

"Not long." 

"Are they this bad?" 

"Not usually." 

"How often?" 

Mulder frowned, considered Averman. "I don't know. Not often. It's not the work. I know that's what it must look like. But it's not." 

Averman nodded. "You want to tell me what then?" 

Mulder swallowed, looked Averman in the eye. This man, for some reason, was giving him a chance. "When I was twelve my sister disappeared. She was eight. They found me on the floor with my father's gun, like I'd been trying to shoot whatever it was that took her. I was catatonic for four days. When I woke up I didn't remember any of it. I still don't." 

Averman sighed heavily. "Are there any other problems?" 

Mulder did not pretend not to understand. "No," he muttered. "Sometimes I get mad easily, but the men in my family have bad tempers." 

Averman nodded. "Is that why you act like such an asshole?" 

Mulder frowned, stared at his lap. "Yes," he muttered softly. "That and I'm sick of all this shit they keep piling on me." 

Averman sighed. "You're very good. The Bureau's going to use that." 

Mulder closed his eyes. "All I see are dead bodies. Sometimes I go out looking for some and I see a pretty girl and something flashes in me and I see how she would look dead after someone like Frito got hold of her. Sometimes I'm just driving and I'll pull off because I saw a spot that would make a good spot to dump a body and I have to go check, just to make sure no one else has had that same idea. I've found one or two that way." He frowned. "I sit in a restaurant and I look for the psychopaths. There are other people in Behavioral who do this work almost as well as I do. But they get time between cases and I don't. . .I flew in from Wyoming yesterday morning, got in around 2 a.m.. Guy had killed this woman by gutting her like a deer. I wrote the profile in the airport terminals and turned it in that night. I thought, they'll have me writing reports or doing paperwork, at least for a few days, but I get called at 6 a.m.. 'So glad you're back, we'll have someone else wrap everything up--don't worry you get credit, your ticket's at the airport.' They wanted Spooky on this one. `A rare and unique talent'. That's what they say when I complain, then pile this huge guilt trip on me about all the lives I'm saving." 

Averman swallowed. Four hours between violent murders. Four hours. God. Anyone would crack under that kind of pressure. Four days would be too few. Mulder got four hours. He stayed very still, waiting for more, but Mulder had run out of breath. "I'm okay." He looked up. "I'm not crazy. Not yet. I can finish this case up. Don't turn me in." 

Averman frowned. "Can you?" 

Mulder nodded. 

"Okay. I want your word that when this is over you'll go to psych services and get some help." 

Mulder nodded. "I will. Thank you." He did not look at Averman. 

"Okay. I'm going to shower and dress." Averman kept the pity he felt for Mulder out of his face as he strode to the door. When he was back in his hotel room he pressed his eyes closed, breathed deeply. What the hell was the Bureau doing to this guy? And why? 

 

"You know what's going to happen? I'll tell you what." Cooke hawked noisily and spat. Averman watched the ugly gob vanish into a dark patch of dust in moments. Cooke's voice was also ugly. "Wonder boy over there will wave his magic dick, make a few pronouncements, go back to DeeSee and *we* get stuck with the clean up and the hard work. Prick." 

Averman's eyes were unreadable behind the mirror-shades that reflected the bleak field where Mulder was just standing, looking around. He turned, and Cooke's florid face was distorted in the lenses. "That what you think is going on here, Cooke?" 

"Sure. Somebody with a hard on for Dirty Harry decides we need to play glitzy profile games and sends out Spooky. Now, no matter what he says, he gets credit when we bag this sicko on good old police work." Cooke wrinkled his peeling nose, blinking from behind expensive-looking shooter's glasses with some kind of designer signature in the corner. He'd have a raccoon-eyes burn when he took the glasses off, his shirt was stained with sticky, summer sweat and he itched. And Spooky just stood out there, in that fucking dried-up corn field, turning in circles and talking to himself. 

Averman had tried to tune the little turd out. He put about as much value on PR flakes as he put on televangelists bringing him God's true word. Little horse-fly of a man, pop-eyed and big-nosed, and he'd been buzzing away at Mulder ever since the profiler had joined them for lunch. Rodriguez, had tried to shut the guy up, but that was generally Mulder's job and he hadn't made a dent in the man's verbal barrage. Besides, Rodriguez wasn't here. He was riding back to Tulsa with Stengal to get the tissue samples back in--no courier services around here--so Cooke had come out with a car. Tulsa was probably glad to get rid of the twerp. 

Mulder had stopped cold, was scuffing at the dirt. He crouched and sort of sighted, like a surveyor would, then he was up and off across the field at a half-lope. 

"Shit," muttered Cooke. "Off his rocker." Averman ignored him and paced out after Mulder, wondering what the young man had seen. Mulder had reached the corn, and was stepping carefully between rows, looking before every step. Averman caught up with him easily enough. 

"You got something?" 

"I have no idea." Mulder sounded distracted, though, and Averman had seen good agents in his day. He believed the tone, the attitude, more than he believed the words. "He. . ." Mulder seemed too busy to really bother with his sentences, but he tried again. "He didn't come from the main road." A glance back to the blacktop, where Cooke was sweating bile. "Whoever he is, he knows the back roads well enough to get here other ways. Look here." Mulder was fingering yellow damage that marked a bruised stalk. 

"Could have been done by the farmer who found her, Mulder." Averman might believe him, but the boy would do better if he had to work for it. Mulder shook his head. 

"The farmer would have worked with the rows. And there's a straight enough path of this kind of bruising. I'm surprised the locals didn't catch this, it's easy shit." He sounded a little sour, doing work he figured should already have been caught. 

Once they knew what they were looking for, the path was simple to find. A rustling, baking trail through dusty green, brushing bugs from their eyes, tasting the dirt that flavored every breeze in this hot, dry place, where soil created the fog instead of water. The crushed grasses and ripped-up plants of two weeks ago lay sere, marking where Ericka Jones' murderer pulled off the road. No Eliot here, no poetry to this land. It was too dry for such things to survive. Fantasy curled up and died in this heat. Or it should have. One person's fantasy had been unloaded right here, thrown away once he was done with it. 

Mulder didn't know what to say. Averman could see his throat working, swallowing convulsively, although no spit survived and the dust was thick in his nose and mouth. He was glad he couldn't see the hazel eyes behind those glasses. The two of them looked. You could always hope for something dropped in the dirt, some miraculous error. You could also hope to win the lottery, it still never happened, but you had to try. 

Cooke showed up eventually, looking over the sight and loudly declaring it useless. 

"I knew they hired you for a reason, Cooke. They needed an expert to recognize useless shit." It was a pale carbon copy of the Spooky Averman had picked up at the airport, but it was enough to bring a flush of anger to Cooke's sunburned face. 

"I'm calling it in. Let the pros do the real search." Averman lead off back across the fields, hearing the other two following him. Mulder caught up with him, a few hundred yards ahead of Cooke's pudgy, plodding form. 

"They won't find anything." 

"No, but it's something to do. It's another thing found, and that's more than we had before. Maybe I'll put Cooke on it." Averman's smile was thin. Mulder's answering grin was wide, manic. 

 

"Let's drive around a little," Mulder said softly. 

"Looking for what?" Averman asked, curious. "For. . ." Mulder shrugged. 

Averman felt a chill go up his spine, 105 degrees and he was fucking cold. "Yeah. Okay," he said gently. "You'll know what you're looking for. . ." 

"When I see it." Mulder finished. 

 

The bridge was narrow, rickety and rusting. When one car was on it, oncoming traffic had to pull over and wait. Averman was on the shoulder, waiting for the old woman to see enough over her steering wheel to start moving again. Mulder heard him sigh, but he wasn't really paying attention. He was watching the flat, muddy trickle that was all that was left of the river in this dry season, and trying to remember what it kept nudging in his head. 

"The circles of the stormy moon Slide westward toward the River Plate, Death and the Raven drift above And Sweeney guards the horned gate." 

"What?" But Mulder was out the door before Cooke's exasperated question had died in the car. Averman flicked off the key and followed, cursing. Good agents work on instincts, Mulder was working on fucking autopilot. Mulder was down, under the bridge, and Averman yelled to him about moccasins in the rushes. Little good the kid would be if he got poisoned by some snake. 

Mulder was oblivious. 

"I will show you fear in a handful of dust. Fisch weht der Wind Der Heimat zu Mein Irisch Kind Wo weilest du? You gave me hyacinths first a year ago; They called me hyacinth girl. --Yet when we came back, late, from the hyacinth garden, Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither Living nor dead and I knew nothing. . " 

Mulder chanted softly. "He brought her here. Does this flood when it rains?" He asked as though Averman or Cooke would know. "It's the closest river to that damn field. . .Frito said that there was no trauma, no evidence of death. What if he drowned her? Not dead. . .no. Just unconscious. You need a water supply when you're working with meat, drain off the blood. She's unconscious, not struggling, but the blood drains. The heart still pumps itself dry. . . .brought her here at night. There was a moon two weeks ago. . .I was still in Wyoming two weeks ago, we did some work at night. . .wouldn't need a light. It's deserted. Brought her here, held her under the rushing water long enough so she went unconscious. Or maybe he drugged her. I don't know why he stuffed her. . .I think that's part of the game. . .so I won't know. . ." 

Mulder paused speculatively. "Dry the pool, dry concrete, brown edged And the pool was filled with water out of sunlight And the lotus rose, quietly, quietly The surface glittered out of heart of light, And they were behind us, reflected in the pool. Go, said the bird, for the leaves were full of children." 

Averman realized that Mulder, in his head, was back in the dark, watching. He waited for more recitation, but Mulder was speaking again. "Got rid of the blood. . .the entrails. . .if it flooded, the entrails would wash down river, wouldn't they? Then animals would have gotten it. Coyotes or whatever. And he didn't have far to cart her. . ." Mulder frowned. "That doesn't tell us where he is, though, does it? He's gone from here. Long gone." Mulder grimaced. "He knows the backroads 'round here. But he knows the backroads in all the places. . .he's going to kill. . .Dad was a farm worker, maybe?" Mulder glanced at the sun, winced. 

"It's hot here. Find out if it floods." Without any further word to anyone, Mulder trudged back up to air conditioning and the car. 

 

"Yeah she coudda' been drowned. Yeah," Rodriguez agreed when he joined up with them again at Regional. Mulder was leaning back in his chair, feet on the long conference table of the room they'd claimed. He was all Joe Cool now. Arrogant as hell. Scoped out the local secretarial pool, given them a small shy grin and any one of a number of pretty little rancher's daughters, patriotic to the core, proud to be typing for the FBI, would probably flop on her back if he so much as breathed on her neck. Averman wondered, with some irritation, how many women in how many cities Spooky had done. He didn't even so much as look at them unless they were Betty Bureau. Averman had to give him that. 

A receptionist, all of nineteen maybe, brought in a tray of canned soft drinks, set it down with tall, watering cups of ice. 

Russell, an older, seasoned agent out of Tulsa blinked in surprise, as did most everyone else. 

"Thanks, Kacy," Mulder muttered, flashing her a smile. "No problem. Ya'll been out in the field and all. Hotter than the devil on Christmas." Kacy flushed to her naturally blonde roots and nearly ran out of the room. Mulder glanced at the selection, grabbed a diet coke. 

"You don't need diet stuff yet," Russell growled. "How'd you get a Clerical to do that?" 

Mulder popped the diet drink open, grabbed a cup of ice. "Do what?" he asked, genuinely surprised. "She asked if we could use anything and I said I was thirsty, but not to bring me anything unless she thought everybody else could use something to drink. . ." 

Rodriguez grabbed a Sprite. "Don't worry about how he does it," he informed the room. "He came over for supper and my wife's eyes never left his butt once." 

"You notice she didn't cut you off when you got sent to Nevada last year, but now that *I*'m gone. . ." Mulder grinned mischievously. 

"You're a real cocksucker, Francis," Rodriguez grinned. 

"As they say on the playground. . .takes one," Mulder replied. 

"Well whip it out and we'll see." Rodriguez leaned in towards Mulder. 

"Frito, you couldn't handle what I got. Takes me twenty minutes to stuff it down my pants. . .and then I gotta be careful not to step on it, cause it falls down sometimes. . ." 

"Enough." Averman's voice cut through their words. "Enough. Can we get back to the case?" 

He glanced around the room. Two agents were grinning, Cooke was disgusted, and two agents were glancing at Mulder and Rodriguez uneasily. 

"So what else do we know?" Averman asked. 

Hitchens, flipping through his notes, cleared his throat awkwardly. "There was no report on Bonnie Grant being sexually abused. However, the county sheriff spoke with the family this morning. . .they said they caught Bonnie "playing" with a cousin last summer." 

"How old was the cousin?" Mulder asked. 

Hitchens glanced at his notes. "Sixteen." 

Silence descended on the agents crowded around the table. Mulder closed his eyes, made a temple of his hands, put the temple to his face. "She would have been seven last summer. Probably beat the shit of her for it too," he muttered to no one. "Same kind of people think a woman in a mini-skirt deserves to be raped." 

"So how does he know?" Averman asked of the room in general. All eyes turned towards Mulder. 

"I don't know," Mulder sighed, closed his eyes. "We've got a little boy buggered. A little girl. . .fondled. . .another little girl, maybe something worse. The timing's off. There should be a first body, some kid we haven't found yet." 

"First body?" 

Mulder's eyes snapped open. "Yeah. He's an intelligent fellow, our murderer. I think he wasn't quite sure what he wanted out of this, there at the first, but now he knows. He hid the first body. Now he wants everyone to know. He knows just exactly who's coming to dinner. Why do you think he stuffed the last one and left her to bake in the sun?" The grin was manic and somehow demonic. "Ant garnish and all that?" 

It was chilly, summer air conditioning chilly in the windowless conference room, with the cheap office chairs and the Oklahoma state map and the picture of William Webster, who was now fucking around with the real spies, Ronald Reagan, and Edwin Meese hung up as an odd sort of Trinity, watching over a wizened flock. But the agents gathered around the table, staring at Spooky Mulder who had just promised three more deaths for a certainty. They were all suddenly ice cold. The silence was sharp. Spooky didn't seem to notice, just closed his eyes, feet still propped up, brain spinning in realms where demons played and monsters prowled like housecats underfoot. 

It was Rodriguez, finally, who broke the silence. "Shit, Francis. Does this mean I gotta work with a six week old body next time? Fuck." 

 

Late Afternoon. Mulder was sitting in his hotel room, having ducked out of the office on the excuse that he got more paperwork done in still and quiet--and in full view of a television set, although this part of it was unstated. Averman had agreed, but insisted Frito go with him. Mulder imagined raised brows at that one. Why would the Spooky need a babysitter? 

He had to wonder how much cash Frito and Averman had dropped to get this room arrangement. He and Frito had connecting doors. Averman was in the room next to Mulder's. Cooke was on another floor. Frito had opened the connecting door without comment, and Mulder had decided not to make an issue of it. Averman wasn't mentioning what he'd seen to anyone, and wasn't acting like Mulder was one step from the loony bin. 

Mulder yawned, stretched on his bed, considered the minor league baseball game ESPN was showing. Alexandria Aces versus somebody with green lettering on their uniforms. 

Next door Frito was actually writing a report. Mulder liked behavioral. For some reason they thought that you actually had to go back and look up indicators or something. Yeah right. He just started typing and saying this indicates this and this indicates that and these behavioral patterns are indicative of that. . .you didn't pass your orals at Oxford on a cute smile. . .anyway, he would write a profile sometime tonight, run it through his grammar checker and spell checker and everyone would ooh and ahh and think he worked like mad. Mulder already knew what the report would say. Had it written in his head. The sexual abuse thing puzzled him. He wanted to know how this guy picked his prey, what *he* saw that made him choose. Two choices had occurred to Mulder. First, he wanted sexual abuse victims. Second, certain behaviors occurred in children who had been sexually abused. Was one of those behaviors what the killer was focusing in on? Had the killer been sexually abused? The obvious answer was yes. This guy wasn't very obvious. 

Mulder watched the Aces jog in. He still didn't know the name of the other team. Must have changed uniforms recently. He knew his baseball teams. Oh. The Beaumont Gators. New Team. He hadn't watched them play before. Okay. 

Rodriguez glanced through the connecting door. He'd given Francis enough time to fall asleep, he hoped. "Get him up there, make him take a nap." Averman had said quietly, drawing Sam into a quiet office. "Let him pretend he's going to do some paperwork. I don't care. Get him quiet." 

Mulder was sitting up, rifling through files, reading. Oh shit. 

"Whatcha' doin' Marion?" 

"These interviews are worthless." Mulder said throwing down the files. "I've got some shit from them, but I need more. Can I get some agents to go back to the victims elementary schools?" 

Sam frowned. "What you askin' me for? Shit. If you want it, you know they'll do it. But you better tell them what you want if that's not any good." 

"Yeah. . .stupid gundicks. . ." Mulder swore, picking up the phone. 

"After you get done, why don't you get some shut eye?" Sam mentioned mildly. 

Mulder shot him the finger. "Hi? Peg? It's Mulder. I need Agent Averman. . .thanks. . .yeah, you too. . .Averman? Hi. Yeah. Listen. I need agents sent back out to the elementary schools. Listen, I need them to ask about specific behaviors, I don't have copies of report cards or discipline reports, Parent-Teacher conferences. . .yeah, no, nothing about strange men lurking about. I want to know if these kids had friends and if they did what social strata they hung out-- you know, tough guys, bimbettes in embryo--what they acted like in class. . .yeah, exactly. . .if they give you any flack get a subpoena. No judge in this state is going to deny us anything at this point and we all know that. . .yeah. . .I don't know. I need more info. Listen. . .also. . .no. . .yeah. . .I need a list of unsolved adult murders from the past year. . .male. . .over thirty. . .not the steady sort, wanderers, drifters. . .yeah. Thanks." Mulder grinned and hung up the phone. "Sorry. I didn't realize I was supposed to be a good child. I'll put my shit away and watch baseball now." 

 

"Fuck." Rodriguez sighed and stared at an empty screen that had been full of text the instant before. Then he'd hit . Or thought he'd hit . Whoever put a delete key there should be shot and autopsied. Preferably not in that order. He slammed shut the clumsy, heavy, twenty pound portable pain-in-the-ass that made some tally-whacker down in procurement feel au courant. What ever happened to pen and paper? 

Of course, maybe the meat-pullers back in D.C. weren't totally to blame. Trying to type and listen at the same time wasn't as easy as it looked. Hit and lean back, let yourself listen, focus on what's there to be heard. 

The game. Of course. Some rinky-dink, cow-town team the local shit-kickers all swore was better than the pros. Cheers and beers and announcers, all rambling from Marion's room. The sound of cars with lousy mufflers, rusted bodies, and bad alignment since Oklahoma was where old cars went to die. Motorcycles. The low whistle of wind out here in the fucking end of creation, where God never bothered to put anything that could slow it down. 

And paper. Again. That was when he'd hit the damn delete key, when he'd heard the soft, little sound of a page folded back. Up, off the creaky springs of the bed, to hang in the connecting door, tie undone, dark eyes bloodshot from a night living with somebody else's bad dreams. 

A friend's bad dreams. 

"What are you doing, Marion?" Bastard didn't try to hide the files, or look sorry. Just grinned back at him like nothing ever cracked that shell. 

"What, Frito? You been here so long you've even forgotten what reading looks like?" Rodriguez fought the urge to take the files away. 

"I thought you told Averman you were going to be good?" 

Mulder's expression barely changed, except that all the life went out of it and left the shell of a smile. Rodriguez crossed his arms and stared back, wondering how many years Spooky had managed to pull it off. Single rooms, or separate hotels or anything that kept people from hearing him scream and scream, until he was too tired to be terrified any more. 

"Francis, do me a favor? Put the files down." He had to grin, [just put the files down and no one has to get hurt. . . ] 

"Do I have to come out with my hands up?" 

"Better be all you get up." 

"Yeah, you'd be cut off forever if she saw what I. . . " 

"Any chance I can get you to shut up and just watch the Hick Bowl?" A long hesitation. "Francis, it's not like I didn't notice anything. What were you planning to do? Go a week without sleeping?" The idiot grin he got in return did nothing for Sam's peace of mind. 

"I tell you what, Frito. I'll behave." Mulder handed the files over. "Now go screw up more paper work and let me watch the Gators embarrass themselves." As if not having the files would stop him. Sam shook his head, but Averman had already told Mulder off, he wasn't going to add anything now. 

"Get some sleep, Francis. I'll give you your mags back when you wake up." 

"Celebrity Skin?" 

"Sure, we'll take shifts. But the pages better not be stiff." 

Mulder snorted, but he'd sprawled back, shoes off. Sam crossed his fingers and went back to his fucked report. 

_________________________ Continued in part 3.............. 

=========================================================================== 

From: livengoo@tiac.net Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 3/41 NC-17 Date: 23 Jan 1996 07:08:35 GMT 

Oklahoma (Part 3/41) By Amperage and Livengoo Copyright October, 1995 

International Readers: No third season spoilers Rating: NC-17 for language and violence 

Fox Mulder and the X-Files are the creation and intellectual property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting. The FBI is the property of the US Government. Oklahoma and Louisiana and Texas belong to exactly who you think they'd belong to, and everything else belongs to Amperage and Livengoo. 

The sun had shifted, letting the rooms cool, by the time he'd reconstructed his work. The Gators were humiliated and gone. Pro wrestling or monster trucks or some other Taco-circuit cultural mecca shrieked from the next room. Rodriguez saved to disk and went to wash the prickly heat-sweat off his face and under arms. God, and he'd though D.C. was bad. 

A quick glance. Francis was crashed, sprawled over his pillow and drooling on the bedspread. Rodriguez watched him twitch for a moment. Dreaming. Muttering something about kids, and water, beaches. Rodriguez tensed, half-expecting nightmares or screams after the night before, but relaxed and started breathing again when the Spookster slid back into dreamless rest. Near miss, one pass through R.E.M. complete, can we go for two? 

He stepped back, shut his door most of the way. The numbers on the phone pad were almost instinctive. Rodriguez settled back on his bed and waited. 

One. . .Two. . .Three. . . then the phone and the machine picked up at the same time. 

"Hello, you have reached. . ." 

"Hello, who is this, just a second, let this. . ." Grunt while she tried to reach the switch in the back. Sam grinned at the two Jenni-voices running over each other. The message finally ended, leaving him with the husky, out of breath one. 

"All right, hello?" 

"Lucy, I'm gonna be late." Falsetto that he knew she hated. 

"Sam? Sam! Honey, I miss you. When are you coming home? I wasn't expecting you to call until tonight." Husky voice, oh yes. He felt his balls throb and his cock twitch at the sound. 

"Yeah, well. I wanted to hear your voice. Make sure you weren't out with the pool man." 

"We don't have a pool." 

"That never stopped you and me from getting wet together." 

"You're alone." He could hear the smile in her voice. 

"More or less." 

"I just. . .took my pants off." He could hear the fabric. Her voice got just a little throatier as she told him what she was doing to herself. A sudden wet sound, then quiet, then her breathing again. "Hear that honey? Remember how it tastes?" 

Oh god. "I got a tent pole here, Jenni. I'm so hard. . . " she laughed at his voice. He was dripping, she was talking again. 

"You got your hand around it, Sam? Go on, baby. Stroke your cock." He glanced up at the door, but the TV was the only sound from next door. 

"Yeah, Sammy," she growled, and he ached. She was urging him on, breathing in time with him, panting. He could hear her whimpers, for God's sake he could hear her pussy. He was slamming his hand up and down, his hips jumping as he moaned, pumping, phone clutched next to his ear so he could hear her, come with her. His heart was racing, and the mattress squeaked almost one long wheeze now, slamming and coming and long distance and ogodogodogodogod. . 

. Until he and she sagged back, panting to each other, and all he could do was lie there, soaked and lonely and listening to his wife's voice. 

"That good for you, Sam?" Sweet and smiling, voice like silk. 

Sam moaned. 

"I can get the red-eye, be home for the weekend." 

"Unh unh, lover boy. I told you, D.C. and me. I'm glad your hand felt so good, 'cause it's your best friend 'til you come home for real." 

"Jen, Jenni. . ." He tried not to whine. 

"You knew the rules, Sam. 'Til you're out of beaner country, long distance is the next best thing." 

"Christ, Jenni. . . you're a real ball-breaker." 

"Unh hunh. Thought you hidalgos didn't talk about ladies like that." 

"Ladies don't cut their men off." 

"Go borrow Mulder's skin mags." 

"You can't turn the pages." He heard the faint sound as she buried her face in the pillow and laughed. It took a while for her to come up for air. 

"You know, Daddy can get you sent back." 

". . . I can't do that, Jenni." Suddenly soft-voiced, quiet. 

"Yeah. I know. See you when it's over, loverboy." He could hear the understanding there. 

"Love you, Jenni." 

"Yeah." The laugh was back. . . "You and Rosie Palmer." 

"Bitch." 

"Give Mulder a kiss for me." 

"I will if I'm here much longer." He grinned as she whooped again. 

"Bye bye, Jenni." 

"Love you, Sam." 

"You too." 

 

Fox Mulder woke up, face down in the wet spot. He wiped the drool off his cheek, and felt like a five year old, groaned and rolled onto his back. There was some inane fishing show in the background. He stared at the ceiling, trying to remember where he was this time. Wyoming? No, there hadn't been stains on that ceiling. And he could hear an electric razor like it was in the same room? 

Mulder sat up, startled. Took in the open connecting door, the sound of someone in the bathroom over next door. Frito, right. Oklahoma. Eliot. Frito. He felt a profound relief, suddenly, to have awakened lying there, quietly, instead of curled somewhere small and hidden. He ran a hand over his face to clear the last cobwebs away. 

God, his mouth tasted awful. He worked his shoulders, his neck. The razor stopped. He could hear Frito moving around, getting dressed. Mulder pulled himself to his feet, taking in the clock and the angle of the light, surprised to see it was almost six-thirty. The phone rang next door, Frito kept his voice down when he answered. Mulder caught one or two words, nothing much. 

"What's going on?" 

Frito spun, shirt still only half-buttoned, crisp though, fresher looking than Mulder by several degrees, and knowing it. "Hey, it lives. We'll be down in around forty-five minutes, Averman. Spooky just decided to return to the living. . .uh huh. Right." Hung up. "We meet the man for dinner, Francis. You have forty-five. Go get ready." 

 

Dinner was, surprise, surprise, another steak house. Except there were eight agents, all getting a good dinner at the expense of their favorite butt-fucking uncle. Mulder was quiet, staring at walls, at faces, generally reminding everyone why he was called "Spooky" in the first place. And he was all work, which pissed some people off. It didn't piss Averman off. 

So Frito and Averman and Spooky all found themselves sitting at one end of the table, discussing the case while three or four other agents listened and two or three agents, Cooke among them, watched sourly and complained about how Spooky was a sonofabitch who brown-nosed. 

"Do we have the interviews of the kids?" Mulder asked over his house salad, shoving spinach leaf into his mouth. 

Averman nodded towards Russell and Meyer. "Yeah." The kid was shovelling his food away like there was no tomorrow. 

Russell didn't need his notes to tell Spooky what he'd found. "Raintree was a quiet kid. Tall for his age. He played little league and never got into trouble. He always did what he was told. He was scared of the dark." 

"Scared of the dark?" Mulder asked. "How'd you know that from school?" 

"Principal was his denmaster in cub scouts. Said the kid was terrified of the dark." 

Mulder frowned. "Irrational fears are usually a sign of something that's wrong in a kid's life. . ." The wheels turned. "What about the two white girls?" 

"Umm. . .Stengal sent me this," Averman said. "Ericka was. . .a sweet child, always did as told. . .never gave the teachers any trouble. . ." Mulder nodded as though he now expected to hear this. 

"I'll ask Stengal to go back, see if she was frightened of anything," Averman finished quietly. 

Mulder nodded. 

Meyers considered his notes. He was incredibly green, Mulder realized. A kid. Not a brilliant kid like him, to be forgiven faults and humored. Just a kid who would one day be a good agent. Mulder might be shit to most people, but he was nice to those who had less seniority, less rights than he did. Sometimes he wondered if other agents would ever learn that. It wasn't just poster-boy looks and a firm butt. It was recognizing that everyone on this planet has feelings and emotions and likes knowing that you know they exist. Mulder considered his empty salad plate wondering where the greenery had gotten too. He'd even, somehow, eaten the cherry tomatoes. And he hated cherry tomatoes. . . 

"Bonnie Grant was a quiet shy child. Good grades. No problems. Her teacher said she was very sensitive and that she came to school with bruises occasionally. 

"Why didn't they report it to Social Services?" Mulder asked. 

Meyers frowned. "She said they did," he replied. 

Mulder nodded, sighed. "Some places Family Development and those type of people do a good job, some places they're witch hunters, some places they don't do anything." His eyes wandered to the empty glass plate in front of him. He played with his fork a moment, lost in some private remembrance. The other agents assumed it was from some other case, some child beaten to death by his parents. To Frito it was a frightening thing. Watching Spooky dredge up memories from somewhere. From a somewhere where little girls disappeared and big brothers huddled small and frightened on the floor. "You'll call and ask if she was scared of anything?" Mulder asked, looking up. 

Meyers nodded. 

"Good work," Russell told the kid. 

Meyers smiled. From the far end of the table Cooke cleared his throat. "DC called. I have to put out a press report." 

"Make us all look like we're sticking our dicks in the right holes," Mulder said wearily, putting his fork down, glancing at Frito's Beck's dark. "For a 'spic you drink good beer. I think I want one of those," he said easily. 

Frito frowned, glanced at Averman, who hadn't caught it. Spooky Mulder did *not* need alcohol. "Fuck you," he said easily. "Designate a driver." 

"Averman's not drinking." 

But Averman did, somehow, in that barest instant before he screwed up, did catch it. "Agent in charge. I reserve the prerogative." He tossed his car keys to Mulder. 

Mulder groaned. Averman glanced at Sam. Sam gave the barest nod. 

"So what am I authorized to say?" Cooke asked. 

"He's got a kid alive somewhere," Mulder said. "He's just waiting for this pronouncement. The moment he sees that wire service the kid's dead." 

"How long before he gets tired and the kid dies?" 

"How do we know she's alive? All we have is the word of Spooky." 

"I forgot. It comes from God to Spooky to the rest of the world." 

Averman let the agents talk, let them bitch and bellyache. 

"Spooky," he said quietly. "I have to let a press release out. Washington will have my ass if I don't. They'll have your ass too if I tell them why. Besides we don't know if the kid's alive or not. Even if she is, we're just removing her from this misery a little sooner, rather than later." 

Mulder's face closed up tight. He just stared at the table and the little metal caddy with Equal and Sweet-n-Low and sugar and salt and pepper. 

"If all time is eternally present All time is unredeemable. What might have been is an abstraction Remaining a perpetual possibility Only in a world of speculation. What might have been and what has been Point to one end, which is always present. Footfalls echo in the memory Down the passage which we did not take Towards the rose-garden. . ." 

Mulder recited tonelessly. No one heard him but Frito and Averman and Meyers. Meyers frowned. 

The waitress came then with a huge tray bearing their dinners. Mulder smelled the sizzling meat and went pale. He pushed away from the table, hands gripping the edge of his barrel chair, and he left the room. Frito followed, out into the lobby, into the room marked "podners," past the urinals. Mulder didn't even shut the door, just knelt and vomited his two glasses of tea and crackers and spinach and lettuce and cucumber and squash and cherry tomatoes and black olives and croutons into the toilet, heaving, chest rolling with the brute force behind his vomit. And then it was over. Mulder just knelt on the grey, designer tile, staring at the toilet and at the remains of his dinner. He put his head against the seat for a moment. "He's going to kill her the moment we put out that press release. He's going to take her out and he's going to kill her," he said without turning around, voice sick and weary and old. 

"Francis, maybe you're wrong. Maybe she's already dead. Maybe he doesn't have another one. Maybe he'll stop killing once he knows we're looking for him. . ." 

"Yeah right. And Santa gave me my subscription to Celebrity Skin." Mulder's voice was cold, angry. He heaved again, dry heaves this time, dry aching heaves, painful to hear, more painful to experience. 

"You want some Compazine?" Frito boosted himself up on the counter. 

Mulder's response was to shoot him the finger. He waited, came over to the counter, shoved his entire face under the faucet, drank water, spat, drank water, spat, dried himself in the air drying vent. "She's fucked," Mulder said quietly. "Go eat your dinner, Frito." 

Sam frowned. "Francis, you gotta eat." 

Mulder shook his head. "I'm going to go get some crackers or something from a mini mart. I don't think I'm up to cooked animal flesh." 

"If you don't come back, they're going to say worse things." 

"Oh, what the fuck do I care?" 

"If you don't go back, I can't go back." Frito frowned. "If you go back and get sick again, I'll make some apologies and we'll go back to the hotel room. Get us both some chick food. . .salads or some kind of shit." 

Mulder smiled, straightened his hair, or tried to. He kept it so short it never really looked all that messy, even when it was. 

On the way back, Frito managed to get the attention of their waitress. "He doesn't want his steak. We'll still pay for it. Just a baked potato with a little butter and some crackers." He tried to think of something they might have that Mulder's stomach could handle. 

"Could I have some sauteed mushrooms without the steak?" Spooky asked. He still looked about as white as the little starched and bleached, frilly apron around the waitress's waist, so the girl took pity. 

"Yeah. No problem." She smiled brightly. "You just go sit down and I'll bring it right out." She went ahead, grabbed the steak up. "I'll fix a doggie bag for it. You might feel better later." She was a pert little thing, probably just out of high school. Mulder slumped in his seat. Looked miserable. Sam gathered that the other agents had been gossiping about his poetry quoting and sudden departure from the table. 

"Is there anything we should or shouldn't say?" Cooke asked. 

Mulder glared at the entire table. "It doesn't fucking matter what you say. There's a little girl who's alive tonight who isn't going to be alive tomorrow night. Fuck the papers. Fuck the bosses in D.C. You're all killing a little girl." His voice rose unsteadily. 

Averman's hand was on his arm; it looked gentle but the grip was steel. Mulder jerked away. The little waitress brought out a baked potato with butter and two pieces of texas toast and some sauteed mushrooms in a separate bowl. 

Mulder thanked her softly, then stared at the food. 

Sam resisted the impulse to fix the potato for Mulder. 

The other agents were staring, no doubt getting more than enough gossip for the mill. It was enough to continue fixing Mulder's eccentricities. 

Mulder did not eat anything at supper. 

 

 

"Okay." The potato was sitting on a styrofoam tray. Frito mashed the poor cold thing up, gave Mulder the plastic fork. "Come on. You've got to eat something." 

Mulder just stared at him. 

"And pray to God to have mercy on us And pray that I may forget These matters that with myself I too much discuss Too much explain Because I do not hope to turn again Let these words answer For what is done, not to be done again May the judgement not be too heavy upon us 

Because these wings are no longer wings to fly But merely vans to beat the air The air which is now thoroughly small and dry Smaller and dryer than the will Teach us to care and not to care Teach us to sit still 

Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death 

Pray for us now and at the hour of our death," he recited numbly. 

Sam took the fork, put some potato on it, gave it back to Mulder. "Francis, if you think I'm gonna feed you, you got another thing coming." 

Mulder stared at the potato. "I'm not hungry. I think I just want to go to bed." 

Go to bed and do what? Sit up screaming in the middle of the night? 

"Okay." Frito sighed, grabbed the styrofoam box, dumped it onto the counter. Went over to his own room. 

He heard the TV go on. Heard Mulder getting ready for bed. 

Sam went back to his portable pieceofshitmachine and started pounding out another report. After a while he heard the keys flying on Mulder's machine. Sunofabitch would probably spend two hours on it and have something that looked better than anyone else's twelve hours. Life was fucking unfair. Just fucking unfair. 

Continued in part four.............. 

=========================================================================== 

From: livengoo@tiac.net Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 4/41 (NC-17) Date: 24 Jan 1996 05:42:04 GMT 

Oklahoma (Part 4/41) By Amperage and Livengoo Copyright October, 1995 

International Readers: No third season spoilers Rating: NC-17 for language and violence 

Fox Mulder and the X-Files are the creation and intellectual property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting. The FBI is the property of the US Government. Oklahoma and Louisiana and Texas belong to exactly who you think they'd belong to, and everything else belongs to Amperage and Livengoo. 

Mulder went to bed a good twenty minutes after Samuel Rodriguez, certified California gentry of the finest sort. Mulder lay back, head against the pillow, tried to think what the killer was looking for. Sweet children with a fear. Children who could be easily led, told what to do. Sweet children who had been fucked by some loved one. He considered the soft sweetness of hotel pillows with the soft mattress pad and the flat sheets made taut with perfect hospital corners. She was still alive. She. Why a she? Because it was time for a she. The Lady was a she. The lady of the rose petals. Eliot liked writing about The Lady. He put her in Tarot cards, saw her in the BVM. The Lady. Tiresius was both a man and a woman. When Apollo and Aphrodite had a fight over who liked sex better they asked Tiresius, who said women had a better time. Which pissed Apollo and the Roman Catholic church off and in the 1800's doctors were still cutting the clits off women to keep them from playing with themselves. 

The easy breath from the next room indicated that Frito, god bless his horny soul, was finally asleep. Mulder waited a few minutes more for Sam to fall into a deeper sleep, waited to be sure Averman would be in bed asleep, got up, pulled on his blue jeans and grabbed his room key. 

He was just out the door when Averman emerged, looking tousled. "Where you headed, Sport?" 

Mulder hated people who called him `sport'. 

"Ice," he said on impulse. 

"Ain't got no ice bucket." 

"Cold drinks." 

"Caffeine'll keep you up at night," Averman replied, managing to still look all Federal Agent, just the facts ma'am, in a pair of ancient jersey shorts and a ratty t-shirt. 

"Sprite?" Mulder questioned. 

"Where're the car keys?" Averman asked. 

Mulder frowned. "Designated driver, remember?" 

"I don't think I'll be going anywhere tonight." Averman held out a hand, fluttered his fingers. 

Mulder reached down into his jean pockets, handed it over. "You're killing her," he muttered. 

"I know you believe that." Averman resisted adding "son." No reason to piss the kid off without just provocation. "But I don't have any proof of it. I'm sorry. We have to put out some word. It's going to be very carefully worded. Don't worry." 

Mulder stared darkly at Averman. 

"Okay. Go back to sleep. Get Rodriguez to give you some pills if you can't sleep." 

"I'll be okay," Mulder muttered, going back into his room, slamming the door. 

 

The screams were sharp and painful and expected this time. Averman fumbled with his key to Mulder's room, even as Sam woke and was on his feet without thinking, rushing into Mulder's room. 

Mulder was pressed into a corner, screaming. When Sam approached him the screams grew louder, more frantic. He recognized neither one of them, though his eyes were open and crazily dilated. 

"Oh fuck," Averman breathed. 

Sam stood a long moment. Mulder stopped screaming after another minute, after Sam's ears were good and thoroughly deafened. How had he gotten away with this for so long? How, in God's name, had it gone on without anyone catching it? Saint Luke help him. He is so frightened and the world is so cruel, Sam prayed unconsciously. He knelt on the carpet, between the lowboy and the wall, Mulder's corner, under the clothes rack. At his approach, Mulder scuttled back further into his corner. 

God, how many nights had it been like this? Mulder too terrified to move. Just screaming and screaming and then curled up in the dark, terrified until exhaustion or the daylight came and he stumbled up, put on a clean suit and made snide comments and drank a lot of bad coffee and made his scary predictions. 

He made a move closer and suddenly Mulder was scrambling like a rabbit trapped by a predator, clawing without thought or reason or hope. "Easy, Rodriguez." Averman's voice at his back. 

They waited. 

And waited. 

For Mulder to snap out. For Mulder to calm down and know them. For the fear to ease out of his eyes. 

And finally, long after Averman had set pills down on the counter with a water glass, finally Mulder stared at Frito. "Sam?" he asked softly. "Where's Sam?" 

Frito exchanged a worried glance with Averman. 

"I'm Sam. I'm here." 

Mulder stared at Rodriguez, confused, frightened. "Samantha's gone. He took her. She's scared. He's going to kill her. And they all know." His voice choked with tears. "They all know. And they're going to let him kill her." He was sobbing. 

"Francis?" Sam's voice was soft and incredibly gentle. "Francis. I know. I know. I want you to take a pill." 

"I don't want any pills." His voice went up into hysteria. 

"If you take the pill I'll look for Samantha." Frito played it by ear. 

"No. They took her!" 

"Who took her?" Averman's voice now. 

"Tiresius. And the Hollow men, them with their grey skin. The fisher king," Mulder whispered. "In a blue light." 

He was gone, way gone. Call the men with the long white jackets that tie in the back. Call in the beard strokers. Fox Mulder had slipped around the bend. 

Frito got the pills down anyway. "These are pills that you have to take, Fox. We're trying to find her, but we can't right now, because you're really upset. I know it hurts. But we're trying to find her. Right now you have to take these pills. They'll help you be quiet so we can hunt." Frito swallowed. Oh Blessed Lady, please. Please make him take the pills. 

Mulder put out a trembling hand. Frito handed him the tiny Dramamine pills, then the water glass. 

And Mulder took it. 

And then they got him into bed and went back to bed themselves Averman did not say anything. Sam wondered who they would get to ride on the plane back. Someone like Meyers. Here's what Special Agents look like when they crack up. We take their guns and their dicks and give them seventy percent of their salary so they can huddle in a hospital waiting for night and the shadows and terror because we did this to them. 

 

The bed was shaking, and things slammed and it was the Big One, oh god, the Big One, and Rodriguez was going to die all alone with Jenni in D.C. and. . . 

He slammed his eyes open, to see when the ceiling fell in on him, and Spooky-fucking-Mulder smiled at him and kicked the bed again. Frito scrambled back against the headboard, staring like he'd seen a ghost. Or a Spook. Mulder just gave him that shit-eating grin, with his teeth gritted behind it. 

"Time to get up, Frito. We gotta go out and find the kid when Cooke finishes killing her." 

"Jesus, Francis. . . " What the hell do you say when somebody rises from the dead, or near as? Frito just sat there, feeling the skin on his balls crawling and watching Spooky turn on the TV, look for a news station. The clock on top of the set read eight-thirty, and the morning news was in full swing. 

Mulder watched it, wearing a grin that was nothing like a smile and waiting for Cooke to blow some kid's brains out, if she was lucky. If she wasn't, the autopsy would just take longer to read. Frito watched him, suit hanging in perfect creases, poster boy looks in place, mirror shades hanging off his shirt pocket and not a hair out of place. Through the door, he could see the running shorts, shirt and sneakers littered around the room where Mulder had dropped them when he came in after one of those goddamn dawn's-early-light runs he liked to take. Sam looked back to Spooky, arms crossed, snarling at the TV, and felt superstitious dread make his bowels go to ice water. 

He hadn't dreamed it. He fucking had NOT dreamed it. Averman had been here. The water glass was in there by the Spookster's bed, the carpet was scuffed down by the lowboy. God damn it, Frito had not dreamed that Spooky Mulder was curled in a corner last night, screaming and totally out of his head. So why the fuck was he standing there, dressed to the FBI nines, watching Cooke yank the media dicks. Mulder shouldn't even be making sense this morning. 

Frito had gone to bed, knowing he'd send his friend back with a handholder and a head full of tranqs. He'd dreamed about medical review boards and hearings for permanent psychiatric disability. And Mulder was still standing there, real as shit, calling Cooke things he'd never learned at Oxford. On the whole, the Big One might not have been as scary. 

Mulder glanced up at him. "Look at this prick-licker, dancing the FBI two-step with the pussies at the press. Ice water, and tomorrow he'll tell them he had no idea our baby butcher was gonna kill the kid. Asshole." Mulder shook his head and stalked out of the room. Sam could hear him yanking stuff together, throwing it in his briefcase, slamming the lid like he was cutting Cooke's head off with it. He swallowed hard, wiped the sweat off his palms onto his sheets and crawled out of bed. 

Shaking hands pulled a suit out of the closet, turned the water on in the shower. The only reason Frito didn't cut his throat shaving was because he used a Braun electric. A razor and he'd have bled to death before he ever finished. Mulder was out there on the phone, calling Meyers, Russell, coordinating them and giving them what he wanted them to do. Where he wanted them to look. How the fuck he thought he knew where to look sent Sam to the can with the nerve-wracked shits. 

Mulder was pounding on the door and telling him to hurry his ass up before he was done. Sam took a last look in the mirror, seeing skin pale under the hispanic dark tan, eyes bloodshot and jumping with nerves, teeth he just couldn't. . . get. . . to unclench for more than a moment. He had to put his hands in his pockets, they were shaking so hard when he walked out the door and looked at Spooky Mulder, who should have been huddled in his bed drooling and who, instead, was impatiently eyeing his watch and rocking his briefcase back and forth between his hands while he waited for Frito to finish having the shits and shakes. 

Averman was waiting on the balcony, and the look he gave the Spookster was almost as jumpy as Sam's. Mulder stared at the two of them a moment, like they were speaking in tongues. "What the fuck is wrong with the two of you?" Angry, snarling, still seething at the way Cooke had made him party to murder. "We have coffee to drink and a dead kid to start looking for. Cooke's on the air, and our boy's going to work right now. He should be finished sometime between now and tomorrow at six." 

He'd turned his back to them and was clattering down the metal stairs of the motel balcony, hands off a railing that was already hot enough to burn. Dust kicked up behind his feet as he strode across the dry, yellow-dirt parking lot that baked under the morning sun. Sam shivered and looked around at Averman, who was pale under his tan. The two of them followed Spooky like they really couldn't feel their feet. 

"I saw him come in from a run this morning, right about dawn." Averman sounded distant. "What was he like when you got up?" 

"You're looking at it." Sam swallowed. Mulder was sitting in a corner booth, drumming silverware on the table and watching them like they were wasting his time. 

"What the hell is with the two of you this morning?" He was staring at them, trying to read them, and they both watched him like he'd grown horns and a tail. They were starting to make his skin crawl. Sam sat next to him, caging him back into the corner of the booth. Averman settled gingerly across from him. Waved for three cups of coffee and a basket of breakfast rolls. Mulder grabbed a roll and pulled it apart, wolfed it down like he was starving. Sam couldn't recall Mulder keeping anything down the day before, and he shoved the basket over in front of Francis, watching him eat. 

Francis stopped chewing, swallowed, narrowed his eyes. He glared between Averman and Sam. "What the fuck is with you two?" He kept his voice low. "You think this is funny? We don't have enough clowns with Cooke on the team?" Sam took a deep, hard breath. Glanced back at Averman. 

"Francis." Looked into Mulder's eyes. Clear, hazel eyes. "Francis, you remember asking for Sam?" 

Mulder worked the bite of breakfast roll from one side of his jaw to the other. "I don't know what you're playing at, Frito, but we have real work to do today. We can't stop the bastard from killing her, but the faster we find her body the more we'll learn. Or do you figure Jenni's gonna put you back on her A-list if you just get on the news?" His angry voice told Frito that Francis had no idea what was going on. The pathologist swallowed, wracked his brain for anything from his psych rotation that could help, but pathologists weren't expected to deal with this kind of shit. He looked back across the table and Averman looked just as out-of-his-depth, though he covered it better. 

Spooky pulled a county surveyor's map out of his briefcase, spread it out and weighted the corners with coffee cups, bread baskets, silverware. Sam opened his mouth to ask another question, but Averman caught his eye, shook his head. Sam sat there, watching Mulder review every dumping location. They let him have the rolls, figured he needed them by now. He probably never even realized he was eating, his attention was so damn focused on the map. Every so often he'd look up at Averman or Sam, gesturing across the map. 

"He's picking them off strictly in state. The only out-of-state abduction we have was taken out of Six-Flags. The first little girl. But she was *from* Oklahoma. I want somebody, maybe Cooke's cronies, talking to the parents about any familiar faces. I want Meyers and Russell here, the kids know them better at the school, and that's where our freshest leads are." Full Spooky fifth gear today. Most AICs would jump down his throat and strangle him with his own dick for this. Averman just watched him go. 

"He'll have picked the next one by now, and be ready to pick him up the minute he's dumped the girl." Not even worth asking why Spooky thought, no, knew, it was a girl. They would get an answer that only made sense to Spooky, and more likely than not it would be right. 

Averman ordered for all three of them. Spooky barely noticed. When the food came he was still going full tilt, and huevos rancheros went down with barely a break. Sam was taking it in, listening and trying to comment, trying to get past the sure knowledge that Francis should be curled in his bed, watching shows not listed in TV Guide. Averman got up somewhere in the middle of it, went down the hall to make a phone call. When Spooky was in the men's room, after four cups of coffee and more food than Frito believed he could hold, Averman looked across the table. 

"Okay, we play it by ear today. Let him have his head, if he's true to form he's right. And we need him. I called a friend of mine from Little Sisters of Mercy. He's gonna scream bloody murder, but I want him to talk to this guy." 

"Shrink?" Frito's tone told the whole story. Averman just smiled back at Frito even as the pathologist shook his head. "He won't do it. He hates letting them near him." 

"I wasn't exactly going to ask for volunteers. I really don't want to screw with his head, but tonight we got to have a real serious sit-down talk about Samantha, and about little men with grey skins." 

Sam swallowed again, looked at Mulder coming back from the little hall where these places hid their crappers. Jesus, Mary, Joseph and holy St. Luke. Ride with your thumb on the pin, why don't you, then see what happens when you take your thumb off and count to seven. 

__________________ Continued in part 5............... 

=========================================================================== 

From: livengoo@tiac.net Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 5/41 NC-17 Date: 25 Jan 1996 04:45:57 GMT 

Oklahoma (Part 5/41) By Amperage and Livengoo Copyright October, 1995 

International Readers: No third season spoilers Rating: NC-17 for language and violence 

As ever, Fox Mulder and the X-Files are the creation and intellectual property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting. The FBI is the property of the US Government. Oklahoma and Louisiana and Texas belong to exactly who you think they'd belong to, and everything else belongs to Amperage and Livengoo. _____________________ 

Francis had them up at the fly-specked, old, Social Services office, running checks on employees from the last ten years, checking against prior employment, past references, anything that didn't add up, didn't make sense. Looking for someone who'd know. The office administrator had taken offense right off the bat, and Frito had watched Francis turn the man into little, quivering chunks of fat. No mercy, just starting to hammer in the details of murder after murder, child after child, and what it would mean when the next one turned up. All the rage he could not afford to let go at Cooke, and he just flayed that pompous little bureaucrat alive. 

Two of the innocuous agents nearest the carnage had gone white and nearly blown chunks. They all watched, horrified, while Mulder leaned in across the desk, asking where else you'd find a kid with the label this guy shopped for. And Frito felt his guts churn as Francis did that fucking thing again, pulling his hand past his own body, like he was painting a target on his chest. This time Averman caught it too, and Frito saw the older man's eyes widen just a little, saw him adding up ugly numbers, getting even uglier sums. 

When Marion turned back to ransacking employee records, Frito had seen that his hands were shaking again, and that he had to clench them on a grubby, frayed manila file until they'd stop. Please god, tell me Averman's buddy shits gold, and can make Francis listen before the kid blows his brains out on this one. 

And sometime around four-thirty, Frito found Mulder in the men's room down the hall, crouched over the yellow-spotted can, arm braced against the filthy, graffitti-obscene partition. He was pale and wasted from dry heaves. Frito leaned against the wall, feeling the ugly, cracked tile, ice cold through his sweat-dark shirt, chill against his own feverish fears. The pathologist swallowed his own nausea and listened to Francis' dazed voice quote Eliot. Again. And knew they had another one out there, waiting for them. 

"You tossed a blanket from the bed, You lay upon your back, and waited; You dozed, and watched the night revealing The thousand sordid images Of which your soul was constituted; They flickered against the ceiling. And when all the world came back And the light crept up between the shutters And you heard the sparrows in the gutters, You had such a vision of the street As the street hardly understands; Sitting along the bed's edge, where You curled the papers from your hair, Or clasped the yellow soles of feet In the palms of both soiled hands" 

 

Late evening sun slanted golden across the sky. Averman had given Sam the keys to another bucar. Another Taurus, this one burgundy. No one asked, no one even questioned when Frito and Spooky had packed up and gone to the hotel. They were getting used to this. Cooke was out of pocket, talking to the locals about the biggest story they'd fucking had in years, and the other agents just let it ride. 

Marion, of course, just kicked off his shoes, hung up his jacket and lay back on the bed to watch another baseball game. Frito felt some irritation build. Can't make it through the night without doing the mental watusi, but he can fucking kick back and watch a fucking baseball game all afternoon while the rest of us piss our brains out onto diskettes. And then before he goes to bed he'll type up something that makes all that we do look like shit. 

Fuck. 

Three dead bodies and he was the only one to do a decent autopsy. Well, there were toxicologicals on the other two, that was something. Sam frowned sourly at the crabbed handwriting of Raintree's ME, trying to make out the "distinguishing characteristics." 

Someone knocked on the door. Averman. He motioned to Sam. They stood by the concrete railing, squinting in the light, watching heat rise in waves and billows off the concrete. 

"What'd he do at Social Services?" 

"Vomited and recited more Eliot," Sam said sourly, putting his hands on the railing, leaning over. "What'd your shrink friend say?" 

"I couldn't reach him. His partner gave me the name of a shrink here who's real good, real discreet." 

Sam nodded. "What else did his partner say?" 

Averman gazed through his sunglasses at a jiffymart across the road. "Mulder's walking a very thin wire." 

"Well, fuck, we knew that." 

"No. Well, it's PTSD, but hell, we already knew that. He said. . .he said Mulder shouldn't be functioning as well as he is. He said that Mulder shouldn't be psychotic at night and Joe- fucking-cool all day long." 

"He loses it in the day time." 

"Yeah, but not bad enough to yank him home." 

"So, what do we do?" 

"Well, I told him about the Dramamine. He said that if it worked, okay, but we can add some stuff for his daytime anxiety. And maybe some sleeping pills." 

Sam nodded. "I'm licensed, but it'd be better if I could get a local to do the prescribing, one of the ME's or something. I don't have a pad or anything." 

"The shrink here is a psychiatrist. In case we have to commit him or something." 

Sam felt like swearing. Instead he hit his hand against the railing, closed his eyes. 

"What happened with him?" Averman asked softly. 

Sam opened an eye, squinted at the AIC. 

"Was he sexually abused, do you think? His sister killed to protect some dirty family secret?" 

Sam shook his head. "I don't know." He felt his gut churn and twist at the thought. "How does he fucking just know?" 

Averman shook his head. "I've heard him explain his `guesses' in a debriefing. An ASAC sat him down in a room with a tape recorder and Mulder told them. It was. . .I don't know. . .He was quoting medieval texts about vampires in Great Britain and Ghost Rider comic books and JAMA and Rupert Brooke and the ASAC kept the tape like he'd learned something but all we learned was jack shit." 

Averman shook his head. "Have you ever heard Mulder's explanation for his successes? The one he gave at the Retired Agent's Luncheon when they asked the young and coming heir apparent to speak?" 

Sam shook his head again. 

Averman leaned against the railing, stared at Mulder's door. "I quote, `I have a knack for applying behavioral models to criminal activity and explaining motivation through causal factors.' He shovelled enough shit to fertilize all the lawns in Georgetown. You heard what Webster said about him?" Without waiting for a pause, Averman continued. "A rare and unique talent." 

"If a thing is unique it can't be rare. . ." Rodriguez mulled. 

"Don't cast aspersions on our beloved former director." 

Rodriguez grinned. 

Mulder was sitting on the bed, staring numbly at the screen. "What? They found out about my screwing the desk clerk? I swear she said she was nineteen," he teased, flicking the tv off. Averman grabbed a chair, Sam took a seat on the lowboy. "What?" Mulder asked, glancing from one to the other. Frito stared at Averman. His goddamn fucking ballgame. 

"Agent Mulder, the past two nights you have woken with nightmares." Averman's voice was sonorous and gentle. "The first night you became conscious and relatively lucid. Last night, you did not." 

Mulder closed his eyes, went very pale. "Oh fuck," he muttered. "Oh fuck." He swallowed, opened his eyes, stared at Frito. "Why didn't you tell me, you mutherfucking taco lover?" 

"Mulder." Averman's voice was low, almost a growl. "You don't remember any of it?" 

Mulder shook his head. "I'm sorry. I. . .I don't have these dreaming episodes very often. I promise. I won't let it interfere with my performance. I promise. I don't. . .I won't let it happen again. It doesn't. . ." 

"Francis, stop it." His voice was rising towards hysteria. Sam was worried. "Francis. Stop. It's okay. Just stop." 

"What do you remember?" Averman asked softly. 

Mulder shook his head. "I don't. . .I don't remember anything. I never do." 

"But this has happened before?" 

"I. . .I guess so." 

"What happened?" Frito this time. 

"I. . .there was this girl, we were invo. . .anyway. . .I scared the shit out of her. She said I screamed and screamed and then hid in a corner, wouldn't let anyone near me, was babbling something about aliens and little grey men. I've. . .I" He swallowed convulsively. "I've woken up in my closet a few times. I don't know how I got there. Just in the back of my closet where it's dark and they can't come for me." 

"Who can't come for you?" 

"I don't know." Mulder shrugged. "I'm sorry. You shouldn't have to cover for me sir. I'll. . ." He closed his eyes. "I'll go for therapy voluntarily. Please. . ." Mulder opened his eyes, stared at his hands. He looked like a different person then. He did not look like Spooky Mulder, world class pain-in-the-butt. He did not look like Fox Francis Marion Mulder, Sam's friend. He looked young and stupid and incredibly tired. "Please don't make me leave this case." 

Averman sighed. "You have to agree to some things." 

Mulder nodded slowly. 

"I have a friend who does therapy. He's going to call tonight. I want you to talk to him. Be honest. He's not going to turn you in or tell the big bosses. He works for the Little Sisters of Mercy." 

Mulder wanted to refuse. But they had him strung up by his cahones and he knew it. If Averman whispered word of what was going on Mulder would get a nice long leave of absence and when he came back he'd be stuck on some shit detail in Mobile Alabama or something. He nodded. 

"Sam's going to get some prescriptions for some stuff. If he wants you to take a pill you take it. No questions asked. Okay?" 

Mulder stared at Averman and Frito a long time. "Don't. . .don't turn me into a zombie, Frito." 

"I won't man." Not unless I have to. 

"Okay." Mulder put his face in his hands, trembling, pale, cold, trembling with fear and anxiety and relief. 

"I want you to answer some questions for me," Averman finished. 

Frito got up to get Marion some water. Marion took the hands away from his face. 

"What kinds of questions?" 

"Questions we need answers to when it's 2 a.m. and you're screaming bloody murder," Frito answered, putting the waterglass under the tap. 

"I don't have much. . .choice, do I?" Mulder took the water glass, drank deeply, spilling just a little down the side of his mouth. 

He held onto the glass, watched Frito return to the lowboy. 

"How long has this been going on?" 

Mulder swallowed. "I've always had nightmares. After I got into Behavioral Science they started getting worse. It's been really bad for a year or so. And in the. . .when it's kids. . .it gets bad sometimes. . ." 

Averman felt the breath expel out of his mouth and nose as though someone had just punched him. In the corner of his eye, he watched Rodriguez go completely pale. Oh God, a year of screams and waking up and sitting in closets and corners and babbling and no one had fucking noticed? A year of crying and terror and dreams. Oh God. And it got worse when there were kids. Oh fucking hell. 

"You said you were dreaming about your sister's disappearance. What do you remember?" His voice betrayed nothing of the nausea in his stomach. 

Mulder shrugged, shook his head. "Nothing." He went to his briefcase, dug through the papers, moved some things around. "Here." He handed Averman a very old file. 

"What's this?" Averman asked. 

"When she disappeared the FBI came. That's their report and I got a copy of the police report." 

"You carry this with you?" 

Mulder kind of shrugged, sat against the headboard of his bed, picked up a picture that had been face down. Frito hadn't even noticed it. A girl. A little girl with a toy in her hands and a smile. Dark hair. "This is Samantha when she was six." Mulder gave the picture to Sam. 

Okay. Guy keeps the file in his briefcase, keeps her picture on his nightstand the way Frito kept Jenni's picture. Well, Frito had a couple of polaroids under the nice portrait and well, Sam sincerely hoped Marion didn't have any pictures of Samantha under the portrait. 

"Mulder. You have a special affinity with these kids." Averman glanced at Rodriguez. No easy way to say it. "You also. . .show a . . .different understanding of social services. Were you abused?" 

Mulder stiffened. 

Oh God. Bingo. Oh God. Mary, Mother of God, please have mercy on him. Please help him, Sam prayed spontaneously, hoping the Blessed Virgin would understand his being rattled at such a time. Oh God. 

Mulder was sitting there staring at a wall. Oh God, he'd gone off the deep end. Oh God. What had happened to him? Cases Rodriguez had seen began flashing through his mind. Babies fucked by adults, children who'd been tied down while hot curling irons had been shoved up their anuses or vaginas. Boys who knew how to suck a man's dick by five. Children sold to other adults for the price of a carton of cigarettes. Children passed around and around and raped until they finally died. There was some line in the Bible. Christ had said, that if you hurt a child it were better that you be cast into the depths of the ocean rather than do that evil thing. That the very center of hell was reserved for such people. Staring at Fox Mulder, watching him tremble and stare at something beyond the thin motel wall, Rodriguez echoed Christ's sentiments exactly. 

"Mulder, I know this is a hard thing. We're not going to ask you any hard questions about it." Averman's voice, very gentle. The shrink must have given him advice. "When you start vomiting, is it because you're remembering?" 

Mulder just stared. Just sat there and stared, like no one else was in the room, like no one else existed. 

"Mulder." Averman crossed the room, sat down on the bed beside Mulder. "Fox. It's okay." 

"Don't call me Fox." Mulder's voice was soft. "Please don't call me Fox." 

"Was your sister killed because of the sexual abuse?" Averman's voice was even softer now. 

Mulder started out of his trance, stared at Averman. "No. No. No. We weren't. . .that's not what happened. . .I lost Sam. I lost Sam so Dad hit me." 

It was so coldly lucid, Sam wasn't sure what to feel or think or say. So accepting. I lost her, ergo I got beaten. My fault, so I was punished. 

Averman was staring at Mulder. "Is that what happened?" 

Mulder swallowed, nodded, stared at Averman. "What? You didn't think that. . ." His face drained of blood. "No. No. That. . .I. . .No." 

Somehow, somehow, the tight knotting in Sam's gut wasn't so bad. It wasn't that things were better because Mulder's dad hadn't buggered him. It wasn't that exactly. But in a way it was. He'd been beaten. Okay. Okay. That was bad, but not bad in the way it had been before. And it maybe made sense. Francis was home with kid sister, kid sister disappears. Parents have no kidnapper to blame, so they blame big brother. Dad beats the shit out of big brother. 

"Mulder, can you handle this assignment?" Averman asked, very softly. "I'll pull some favors get you off this without the whole world knowing what's happening. Tell them one of the little girls looks exactly like your little sister--shit like that happens, they'll understand." 

Mulder half-smiled, a dopey little smile. "I can't quit. I'm the only person out here who knows T.S. Eliot." 

Continued in part 6................ 

=========================================================================== 

From: livengoo@tiac.net Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW* Oklahoma NC-17 Date: 26 Jan 1996 03:58:53 GMT 

Oklahoma (Part 6/41) By Amperage and Livengoo Copyright October, 1995 

International Readers: No third season spoilers Rating: NC-17 for language and violence 

Fox Mulder and the X-Files are the creation and intellectual property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting. The FBI is the property of the US Government. Oklahoma and Louisiana and Texas belong to exactly who you think they'd belong to, and everything else belongs to Amperage and Livengoo. __________________ 

Frito closed his eyes against the setting sun and took deep, hard breaths of the thick air. Scudding clouds did nothing to relieve the heat, and sweat rolled down his sides, plastered his white, cotton shirt to his ribs. It was cooler inside, in the dark of his room, but he didn't want to go back inside. Francis' panic and misery stained the air in there. He couldn't go back in there until the knots in his guts were gone, until he could look at his friend, and not paint the bruises and marks he'd seen before in autopsies over Mulder's face. 

Averman stepped out, leaned against the railing and drew a long, shaky breath. Shook his head and spat. The dry air ate most of it before it could stain the parking lot a floor down. 

"I called Dr. Guiterriez. He's on the line with the kid now. He'll call you when he's done. He said he'd get the background from you." 

Sam nodded. "Did he say anything else?" Sam kept his voice soft, not really trusting it not to shake. 

"Mulder? Not really, just that stuff about losing his sister, and trying to convince me he'd be all right." Averman sighed, long and deep and lonely. "What did you make of all that, Rodriguez? You know him. . ." 

"I thought I did. He never really talked about his parents. I didn't even know he'd had a sister." Frito swallowed against a dry throat, tried to snort the smell of Oklahoma's thin, fine dirt out of his nose. Felt the grainy sense of it on his skin. "Francis. . . always worked hard at keeping everyone as far away as possible. He has a rep as the biggest swinging dick in Violent Crimes, and he offended as many guys as he possibly could, as fast as he possibly could." Averman studied the faint smile on Rodriguez' even-featured face. "I guess he thought he could tick me off, too. Walked in and called me Frito and tried to rack my balls. I think he nearly shit a brick when I called him Marion." 

"Marion?" 

"Yeah. You know, the Swamp Fox? He works so hard at being an asshole. . . I always figured anybody who had to work that hard to be a prick had to be a pretty decent guy. He told me so much about Oxford, I never really thought about how much I didn't know about him. You don't, you know?" Sam swallowed again. Averman nodded, but Sam still wasn't sure how he could never have wondered about Mulder, never have seen any of this in him. "Do you think he was telling the truth about. . . his dad, his sister and all?" God, please let him say yes. Sam didn't want to believe. . . 

"You mean about the sexual abuse thing? Yeah, I don't think his old man raped them. But I don't think he just strapped him once every so often for good measure either. . .you just don't see a kid look like that unless it was. . . " Averman let it trail, lost in memories he'd rather not have. Glad he'd never seen that look on his own kids' faces. He hawked, and spat again. "You better go in, Guiterriez is gonna want to talk to you, then we meet up with the rest of them for dinner. Barbecue joint tonight." 

Averman grimaced. Sam glanced at Mulder's door, but didn't say it. 

When he shut his door behind him, he had to stand a minute to find any vision in the gloom. He could just make out Marion's voice from next door. The tight, angry tone carried, but no words, thank god. Frito forced himself into useful movement, pulling off the sticky shirt, washing his bare chest, arms, got out a new shirt and tie. Stuffed the other shirt into a laundry bag to drop at a local cleaner's. Marion's voice, rising and falling with anger, shrill with denial, sometimes a word would come clear but no sense to be had of it all. 

And finally, the sound of the phone slamming down. Of a fist against a wall, over, and over, and over. The door slammed back against the wall as Frito went through it. 

"Francis! What the fuck. . . ?" And feeling his heart racing, then calming as he watched Mulder carefully, deliberately, put his palms flat against the wall, back to the room, and just lean his forehead against the cool surface. Finally turned, slid down the wall, eyes open and watching things that had happened a long time ago, a long way away from here. Frito took a step forward, feeling the chill running up and down his arms, until he saw Francis focus on him with wide, dark, terribly young eyes. 

"Frito? It's okay, man." A hollow smile. "I'm fine. I'm just. . . so tired." He shut his eyes, leaned his head back against the wall. Sam stood still, no idea what to do, and finally let the sound of his phone ringing draw him away, closing the door between the rooms. 

"Hello?" He knew his voice sounded. . . distracted. 

"Dr. Rodriguez? I'm Michael Guiterriez." 

"Yes doctor. I believe you just spoke with. . . my friend." The long sigh on the end of the line was no more than Sam expected. 

"Yes, we had a very. . . interesting discussion. I can't say I envy you." Sam smiled. "Do you think you can get him in here tomorrow? He was rather. . . resistant when I suggested it." 

"I can try. When would you want us?" 

Sam could almost hear the other man's smile when he answered. "Tell you what. You get him in here and I'll make time. Until then, let me get some information." He ran through all the standard questions, personal history, childhood, mostly questions Sam found he couldn't answer. The number of things he did not know about his partner were amazing. Guiterriez was unsurprised. "I very much doubt he left many openings for anyone to learn a lot about him. All right, you're a pathologist, right?" Sam nodded, caught himself. 

"Does he show indications of anorexia or of bulimia? Jack told me about the bouts of vomiting." 

Frito thought about Francis, at the pool, working out. No sign of cellulite, thin but not emaciated, ate like a horse most of the time. . . "I think it's very recent, just this case. I've seen him and he's usually healthy, no physical signs related to eating disorders, and I've seen him eat and retain enough food. No real binge eating." He had to smile at that. Most of what Mulder ate would be binge eating for anyone else, but was SOP for Francis. 

"Moody? Radical shifts in behavior?" 

"Always." Sam sighed. "Moody is standard for Mulder. Shifts. . . one I've seen lately. He's pretty rough usually, foulest mouth in the room and all." 

"I noticed. Not out of line for someone in his line of work. They shut it on and off like a light switch depending on whether the mike's live. . . " 

"Yeah. Unless they're in politics." Sam grinned, heard Guiterriez chuckle, refocused. "And Marion's mastered the fine art of it. Truck drivers blush. But. . . not when he's on to something. I don't know how to explain this, did Averman tell you what he does?" 

"A little. But I'd like to hear it from you." He didn't ask about the name. Sam supposed Averman had told him something about it. 

"Mulder does psych profiles on serial killers and violent criminals. Ask him how he does it and he's so full of shit you know why his eyes are brown, but he's good. No, that's the wrong word. There just isn't anybody who can do what Mulder can do. They call him Spooky around the Bureau, and he is. He'll sit there and all of a sudden start telling you about some sick mother who's murdered a dozen kids. Chapter and verse, out of thin air, and every word of it will be right. He's found several bodies himself, says he'll be driving along and he'll see a spot and just. . . know it would be good for dumping a body." Sam felt the chills running up and down his back again. "And often as not, somebody else already thought of it. This time he's quoting Eliot, and we find the poems on the kids' bodies." 

Sam took a deep breath, felt his pulse racing. Guiterriez waited for him to start again. "Usually he's got the mouth of a Marine sergeant, but when he starts that channeling thing he. . . stops. Like he's somebody else. Or like suddenly he doesn't need to keep anybody away, it's just him and the words and the killer, and he's not scared anymore, not chasing us all away." Frito didn't know where it was all coming from, didn't know that he'd. ever seen this in his friend, but when he said it to Guiterriez he knew it was true. "The only time he trusts us, the only time he stops being afraid of us, is when he starts seeing things like a killer." He stopped, the words stopped him. Just stood there and felt things that had crawled out from under some rock. 

"That's. . . consistent with the impression I had of him." Guiterriez' voice was a lifeline out of the dark. "I wish we could get a better history on him, but I'd be surprised if anyone but him knows what I want to know. All right, Dr. Rodriguez, I'm calling in a prescription for Haldol, if he gets so you can't control him. And some oral Valium and some suspension Valium. And Jack said something about Dramamine. If it works, use it. I expect you're in for a rough night. He's pretty shaken up. Try to get him in here tomorrow. And I mean, really try. I don't want you physically dragging him in, but don't let him talk you out of it. He's not going to help me a lot, but I want to see him for myself." 

Sam thanked him, hung up and turned back to the other room. He had to brace himself a moment, but he walked back in like nothing had ever happened. And Francis was sitting on the foot of the bed, like nothing had ever happened. The look he gave Sam agreed to the fiction, and warned him not to poke at it. 

"Averman's got barbecue lined up for dinner. At least it's not another fucking steak house." Yeah, Marion was back. 

 

Forty-five minutes out of Tulsa and the headlights were hazy, shining through dirt and dust driven off the land by the wind. The storm front swept tumbleweeds, dirt, litter of all descriptions across the road in front of Averman's car. The rain hadn't hit. . . yet. Lightning flashed a threat on the horizon and the car rattled when the wind slammed across the road. A big, glowing neon pig doffed a ten-gallon hat down the road. They couldn't see the restaurant. Some kind of big tent fluttered in the wind, ghostly. The sign out front made Frito grin. "Jesus is Your Lifeboat in the Storm of Life." Marion leaned forward between the seats, reading the sign with the disbelief of a staid, New England Yankee faced with Southern, Rock-and-Roll-Me-Over evangelism. His mouth was open, but Frito could see that not even Fox Francis Marion Mulder could conjure a comment worthy of that sign. Averman just grinned the grin of a the Southron resurgent. 

Past the tent, they could see the Hog-Wallow, a shabby little mecca of pork barbecue with cole slaw on the side, and a plate of greasy fries for anyone with the courage to try. Spilled beer and sawdust muffled their footsteps, not that anything could have been heard over the juke box playing 'My Wife Ran Off with my Best Friend, and I Sure Do Miss Him.' Mulder's grin was manic in the gloom, and Frito was almost relieved to see him acting normal. 

The collection of suits in the corner didn't need a sign to announce FBI Night Out. Hitchens waved, as if they'd have trouble finding their table. Mulder was smiling at a waitress already. He'd have caught her eye even without the fibbie uniform. Frito and Averman flanked Spooky, and both poured beer fast, defaulting the driving to him. Or tried to. 

"Unh unh." Mulder leaned over and pulled Sam's beer over to himself. "He's senior, but I got stuck yesterday." Sam looked to Averman a moment, saw Francis take the signal in and saw his jaw go tight. Shit, shit, shit. . . 

The waitress swung her hips past one table, shot a barb off at another, and made safe harbor hovering between Marion and Averman to take orders. Averman counterclockwise, Mulder last, and Frito crossed his fingers and prayed to St. Jude that Mulder would order food, eat it, stay calm. 

No need for a menu, barbecue was a safe bet. Order after order, and the suicide blonde barely needed to write a word. She knew this route by heart, could almost have served them letter-perfect without taking an order. Frito just grinned and looked at her, she grinned back and wrote something down and he knew she'd have it right even without the order. And Marion looked up, polished his best smile on her, and ordered cole slaw and a scotch. 

Her surprise was visible. Averman leaned in, put a gentle looking hand on Marion's arm, and Mulder couldn't have moved that hand for love or money. "You're gonna insult these people, son." Spooky's glare was incandescent. Frito swallowed, feeling the electricity. Meyer was staring, Russell was suddenly very interested in his beer. 

Mulder looked back up, and deliberately repeated his order. The waitress was taking it in, glancing back to the bar, writing it down. "Tell you what, hon. I'll bring a plate on the side in case you get hungry. And a sweet little thing like you, I'm gonna need to see your ID." Her big, flashy, capped smile settled Spooky down just enough. He looked exasperated, but he pulled his license and let her check his age. She grinned and patted his shoulder, told him she had food in her fridge older than him, but wrote down his order. Marion shook his head and smiled at her again. Frito'd seldom seen him flare at anybody further down the pecking order than he was, and thanked God she was smart enough to handle it. Averman let Mulder shake his hand off, settled back to sip his beer and watch. 

Cooke, down at the other end, must have cracked a joke. Loud, bad country-western saved them from it. Tyler and Russell were loudly arguing the relative benefits of Toro and Lawnboy mowers, and Meyer, down the way, was steadily demolishing a bowl of chips and salsa, listening closely to Cooke. Spooky scanned them all, narrowed his focus to the beer in front of him, and pointedly ignored Averman and Frito. 

Dinner showed, and Mulder's scotch made a belated appearance. Sam shot a grateful look to the blonde, behind Marion's back. She winked back. "She's Acting Single, I'm Drinking Doubles" was on the box, and it was clear what conclusion the blonde had reached. Frito could feel the tightrope sway under his feet, and turned as much attention as he could to his dinner. 

The coleslaw actually vanished, to Sam's relief. It wasn't much, but maybe it would stay down. God, he hoped so. Please, please Blessed Mother, let us get through at least one night without trouble. Please. 

Song after song, after really lousy song. Where the hell did these crackers find this shit? 'Dropkick me Jesus, Through the Goalposts of Life?' Even Mulder was grinning, sitting back in appalled wonder to take in the sheer variety of crap they could get out of that juke box. And he was nursing the scotch, not shot-gunning it, thank the Blessed Virgin. Sam didn't think he'd prayed so much since he'd taken his boards. Barbecue and cole slaw and fries and beer vanished or vanishing, empty plates collected, and even Cooke feeling mellow, little butt-pimple that he was. 

Averman excused himself a minute. Cooke, face flushed with beer and heat, leaned in, dipping his tie in barbecue sauce, and shouted to be heard at their end of the table. "Hey Spooky! Better watch out Sunday. They're having a revival and they just might exorcise you!" Sam caught a crack from Bond about faith healing, but didn't pay a lot of attention. He heard Mulder start to shout something back down to Cooke, but the words kind of choked off. 

Sam's neck cracked viciously when he snapped back around to see Marion knock over what was left of his scotch. Wide, wide dark eyes, but Sam didn't think he was seeing Cooke, or anyone else. He could see Mulder's throat convulse as he swallowed, and cursed. God damn it. Can't you keep anything down? 

Mulder shoved his chair back, nearly knocked it over as he got up, but he wasn't heading for the men's room. He turned and walked, calm and fast, for the exit. Cooke was laughing, Meyers and Russell staring, and Frito felt his guts implode in one tight, sudden ball of panic. Spin back to the table, lean over to Russell, screaming to make sure every fucking word got heard the first time, and no screw ups. 

"Get Averman and come after us now! Meyers, you're with me." And out the door. God, God, where the fuck was Spooky going? Frito stared around him, blinded for a moment by the violent, sodium lights and neon in the parking lot. Francis' dark suit and hair made a faint flicker of movement in the dark at the edge. Meyers saw him, pulled Frito after him and took off. 

 

Spooky was up on the shoulder of the road, wind blowing his hair, his jacket, walking steadily down the road until he stopped in front of the big, portable sign. Fingers reached out, grazed across the letters of Jesus' name, across the word "boat." Frito only saw him because he was silhouetted against the stark white of the sign, a darker shadow in a moonless night. Thunder in the distance, and Sam could feel the dirt up his nose, taste it between his teeth, where the storm winds drove it. 

Averman's voice was a faint shout from back in the parking lot. Sam startled to attention, looked back to see the two older men trying to spot them. Averman and Russell were both half-blind back under those lights. Meyers' hiss brought him back around again, to see his friend walk into the big tent. Frito grabbed the kid's arm, sent him scrambling back after Averman and Russell, and followed Fox Mulder into the dark. The tent glowed inside with the lights next door. The wind billowed the walls of the tent, but couldn't move the still, close air inside. Wilted flowers cast a heavy scent around him and around Spooky, up at the front of the tent. His back was to the entrance, just standing and looking up at the dark wood stage and podium, the pale, sagging floral arrangements. 

Sam walked slowly, soundless on the crushed grass aisle that ran between the folding chairs. He could hear Averman and Russell breathing as they loped in, Meyers panting, babbling the little that he knew. And, just barely, Sam could hear Marion's soft voice. 

"I never saw one of these until I joined the FBI." 

"Francis?" Sam kept his own voice almost as soft, praying he wouldn't startle the young man. Mulder glanced back at him, face pale in the eerie glow. His eyes were dark, huge. 

"Methodists don't have revivals. And the Brits don't. Not in the Anglican church, thank you very much." That last in an atrocious English-snob accent. "The first time the Bureau sent me down South I saw a revival. Faith healing. Speaking in tongues, polyester suits and hymns and. . . " He had trailed off, was letting his hand smooth across the wood of the podium. Frito flinched at the clatter as Mulder hopped up to the stage. He could hear a gasp behind him, knew the others were back there, watching. 

Spooky Mulder was standing at the podium now, tracing the tilted surface before him. Frito saw a frown cross his face, saw him suddenly stare off into space, angry. 

"The river's tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed. 

Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song. The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers, Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed." 

"What the fuck. . . " Russell's stunned voice was a faint chorus as Spooky worked up to a full thunder, echoing the voice of the coming storm. 

"And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors, Departed, have left no addresses. By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept. . . " 

Eliot. Oh Christ, more Eliot, it had to be . . . Frito glanced back, caught Averman's wild stare, felt his own heart racing with the wind. 

Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song, Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long." 

Spooky's sudden whisper froze Rodriguez, hearing the voice of a child in this dark place. The return of the thunder sent him reeling a step back, watching his friend stare far away. 

"But at my back in a cold blast I hear The rattle of the bones, and the chuckle spread from ear to ear. A rat crept softly through the vegetation Dragging its slimy belly on the bank While I was fishing in the dull canal On a winter evening round behind the gashouse Musing upon the king my brother's wreck And on the king my father's death before him. White bodies naked on the low damp ground And bones cast in a little low dry garret, Rattled by the rat's foot only, year to year. But at my back from time to time I hear The sound of horns and motors, which shall bring Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring. 

O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter And on her daughter They wash their feet in soda water Et O ces voix d'enfants, chantant dans la coupole!" 

Mulder fell silent, let the wind scream through the stays of the tent, panting for air, seeing no one who was there. Sam had gathered himself to step forward, but the lost, cracked voice from the dark in front of him stopped him. 

"I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest- I too awaited the expected guest. He, the young man carbuncular, arrives, A small house agent's clerk, with one bold stare, One of the low on whom assurance sits As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire." 

Frito shivered, could hear Cooke back there now, swearing in a voice like prayer. Averman stood next to Sam, staring at the young man whose voice wailed with the storm to come. 

The time is now propitious, as he guesses, The meal is ended, she is bored and tired, Endeavours to engage her in caresses Which still are unreproved, if undesired. Flushed and decided, he assaults at once; Exploring hands encounter no defence; His vanity requires no response, And makes a welcome of indifference. (And I Tiresias have foresuffered all" 

A sob that shook him in the luminous dark, but could not still his voice. 

"Enacted on this same divan or bed; I who have sat by Thebes below the wall And walked among the lowest of the dead.) Bestows one final patronizing kiss, And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit. . . 

'Trams and dusty trees. Highbury bore me. Richmond and Kew Undid me. By Richmond I raised my knees Supine on the floor of a narrow canoe.' 

'My feet are at Moorgate, and my heart Under my feet. After the event He wept. He promised "a new start." I made no comment. What should I resent?' 

'On Margate Sands. I can connect Nothing with nothing. The broken fingernails of dirty hands. My people humble people who expect Nothing.' la la 

To Carthage then I came 

Burning burning burning burning O Lord Thou pluckest me out O Lord Thou pluckest 

burning." 

Sam heard his own voice sob in the dark, heard Averman's shaky breath behind him, Russell's steady, monotonous "fuckfuckfuckfuck. . . " 

But Fox Spooky Mulder didn't make a sound as he let his head slowly drop down to touch the podium, shoulders shaking like the wind around them. When he threw himself back upright, Sam's heart nearly stopped. Spooky calmly stepped down off that stage, wiping tears off his face. 

"His father preached and diddled the kids. Dad brought the four or five of them out here after they kicked him out of the church, moved them around a lot. He read Eliot in the back of the church. He killed her tonight." Spooky's voice was calm and even, reciting the facts to them. 

He held a steady hand out to Averman. "Give me the keys. I'll bring her home." 

Averman stared back at him, frozen rather than steady, slowly shook his head. Spooky frowned. 

Meyers' soft voice whispered in the dark. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity." 

Spooky glanced at him, saw the certainty of failure in Averman's eyes. He let his hand roll into a fist and fall to his side. "No, Meyers." His voice was soft and choked with frustration. "He hates Yeats." 

___________________ 

Continued in part 7........................ 

=========================================================================== 

From: livengoo@tiac.net Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 7/41 NC-17 Date: 27 Jan 1996 16:27:27 GMT 

Oklahoma (Part 7/41) By Amperage and Livengoo Copyright October, 1995 

International Readers: No third season spoilers Rating: NC-17 for language and violence 

Fox Mulder and the X-Files are the creation and intellectual property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting. The FBI is the property of the US Government. Oklahoma and Louisiana and Texas belong to exactly who you think they'd belong to, and everything else belongs to Amperage and Livengoo. 

____________________ 

And then he fell into the dust. 

When Frito stood over him, his eyes were closed, his face unlined like the dead who have no worries left to them anymore. His palms were bloody and for a moment all Rodriguez could think was Stigmata, a sign given to the saints. Then he saw the blood was seeping from small moon shaped cuts, from nails driven into flesh when Averman refused. 

His breathing was slow. Steady. "Get him home. Give him fluids. The Spirit is finished with him." A voice echoed behind them. The agents twirled, Meyers' gun, Tyler's gun were out, trained on the voice. 

She was small, a sparrow perhaps. At the sight of their guns her eyes were bemused, her mouth quirked. "Do you fear me? After the Spirit has walked among you." 

The lightening boomed overhead and the lights flickered, went out, came back on. She was still there. 

Averman pulled the first words out. "Who are you?" 

"I might ask you that question. This is my son's tent. He doesn't believe in the dark dove with the flickering tongue. He's Southern Baptist. They don't believe that. . . 

The dove descending breaks the air With flame of incandescent terror Of which the tongues declare 

The one discharge from sin and error The only hope, or else despair Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre To be redeemed from fire by fire." 

"Oh God, another crazy." Cooke's voice seemed out of place, artificial, cheap against the sounds of wind, against the terrible quiet rolling in their souls. 

"No. T.S. Eliot understood faith. Who is your Faith Healer?" 

She walked past the agents and they let her, just let her. Knelt beside Mulder, stared at Frito. "You believe." 

"Yes ma'am." Frito swallowed. "His name is Fox Mulder, Ma'am." 

The woman nodded, touched his brow. "He is very ill. He has been that way a long time." 

Frito nodded again. The woman was familiar. And old. But her gentle eyes were so very clear. 

"He was speaking in tongues. When that happens, when the Spirit moves a person, you must be careful. First, that they do not hurt themselves. You have drugs you can give him?" 

Frito wondered, obliquely, why he was just accepting this woman's advice. Why he was letting this uneducated rural hellfire-and-damnation woman with wrinkled dugs tell him about Fox Mulder. "Yes. Haldol." 

"He needs Valium." Her words were sharp. 

Sam nodded. 

"Give him food. And lots to drink. Give him quiet rooms. When he dreams, give him the drugs, but give him your love." Her wrinkled, gnarled fingers smoothed Mulder's unwrinkled, young brow. 

"Who then devised the torment? Love. Love is the unfamiliar Name Behind the hands that wove The intolerable shirt of flame Which human power cannot remove. We live, only suspire Consumed by either fire or fire." 

Mulder murmured something suddenly, something soft and not understood. The woman sighed. "I know," she whispered as a tear dropped from her face. "I know. It's all right." 

"He needs healing," she told Sam, looking back up. "It will take a long time. And you will not be the one to help him all the way. But that is all right. You will take him into the doorway." 

The woman stood, stared at Averman. The air was suddenly pure and clear and their hair stood on end with tingling and then, without pause for breath or thought or movement, there was a great crash and the earth shook and they felt their hearts move arrythmically against their chests. Yet the rain had not begun. The land was desiccate and barren. 

"You have it in your power to let him take the chosen path. 

Here is the impossible union Of spheres of existence is actual, Here the past and future Are conquered and reconciled. 

Can you understand that?" she asked pointedly. 

Averman swallowed, nodded. 

And suddenly they were. . .the air was. . .and their hair was straight and the sound was sonic driving, driving, draining and hard and they were diving for cover and all manner of things shall be. . .the light. Overwhelming light, bewildering, blinding white light and they could not think could not. . . 

When the lights came back on they were all crouched, listening to their hearts, feeling their stomachs knot and jerk and their heads screaming, their bodies jerking and trembling and they could not think for a moment. 

And the woman was gone as though she had never been. 

 

Sam had his own ideas, waiting for Myers and Russell with a car, sitting with Spooky's arm around one shoulder on the rusty folding chairs. Averman had the other arm. No one wanted to talk about it. Sam knew. God, he fucking knew. When she had touched Mulder's cheek and cried, he knew. Oh God, forgive him for ever doubting. 

Mulder had come around when Rodriguez slapped him several times, but it was a dazed, confused look and no one really wanted him lucid or cognizant. No one wanted to know. No one had wanted to know what they'd heard tonight. Cooke was making the sign of the cross again and again and again. God, he hadn't known the popeyed sonofabitch was Catholic. Irish Catholic no doubt. 

And then the car came and they ran through the dust and the wind and the lightening exploding all around them. It was raining everywhere but. . .Rodriguez slammed the car door shut, watched as the other agents got into the other car. And Mulder closed his eyes wearily, leaned his head against Sam's shoulder. When he looked back, out the window at the second car, it hit. The rain and the hail and wind and they couldn't see the road and the hail was huge, things Mulder could probably fucking pitch. Looking at the second car, its lights were the only thing Sam could see. The lights were off at the Hog Wallow. The lights were off everywhere. 

There was only the big yellow and white tent, only the sign and then, as Tyler decided to try driving in this shit, the lights of the tent went off. Like someone had just fucking hit. . .a. . .switch. 

 

It was just raining and windy and all fired nasty when they pulled into the motel parking lot. Sam pinched Mulder's arm cruelly and he woke again. Stared at Sam, pissed. Lost. "Come on Marion," he said. "Come on. We're home. Let's get you into bed." 

They rejected the offers of help from the other agents. Cooke helped them tug him up the stairs, and then, because Averman said it right, not cruelly, not condescendingly, he went back to his own motel room. 

Mulder was wet. Hell, they were all wet. All soaked to the skin, their suits ruined, their shoes squishing. Frito stripped off his jacket and tie, threw it all into the next room. He wanted a long, hot shower. A long hot shower and then he wanted to run down to the nearest Catholic church. Instead he watched as Averman did the same. Then they turned their attention to Mulder. His shoes slid off easily, his clothes were wet and clumsy and Mulder's energy, expended in his speech, was gone. Used up completely. There was nothing left now for anyone. He could not help them. They rolled him naked into the bed clothes. Sam remembered he had been sleeping with one pillow clutched like a lover and put the second pillow where he could reach it. 

Averman got the Dramamine, handed it silently to Sam who was sitting on the side of the bed, watching his friend sleep. 

"Francis? Francis? Come on. Wake up." Mulder's eyes opened, bloodshot, puffy, his mouth moved, but did not form words. 

"Come on. Good stuff. Open your mouth." Mulder did so automatically. Was rewarded with two small pills. 

Sam put his hand under Mulder's head, lifted it up, put the glass to his mouth. Mulder swallowed once, twice, three times. Good enough. He put the glass on Mulder's bedside table. 

"Sam?" Mulder's voice was weak. No more than a whisper. 

Rodriguez wondered who Mulder was speaking to. Frito or Samantha. 

"Sam, the body's going to. . .your evidence will be destroyed." 

Speaking to his friend. 

"There's nothing we could have done," Frito replied, feeling the tightening in his gut release just a little bit. 

Mulder's eyes moved restlessly. At long last he nodded. He began to speak again. Frito had to move close in to hear what Francis was whispering. 

"There is no end of it, the voiceless wailing, No end to the withering of withered flowers, To the movement of pain that is painless and motionless, To the drift of the sea and the drifting wreckage, The bones' prayer to Death its God. Only the hardly, barely prayable Prayer to the one Annunciation." 

Francis' eyes searched out Averman, found him and nodded, satisfied. He went to sleep then. A tired, deep sleep, deep like the very center of the ocean. Rodriguez did not know what lurked at those depths. Monsters perhaps. Perhaps there was some peace. 

 

Rodriguez lay in his bed, listening to the wind and the hail and the rain. Listening to the lightening and the thunder and to the sound of his own heart. Mulder's room was silent as Mulder's mind prowled the quiet waters of medicinal sleep. His mind worked the prayer of the rosary over and over again. 

"Our Father who art in Heaven hallow'd be Thy name. Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done On Earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread And forgive us our trespasses As we forgive those who trespass Against us. And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from Evil. 

For Thine is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, Lord. Now and forever. 

Keep us free from every evil Lord, and grant us peace in our day. For You alone are the Holy One, You alone are the Lord. You alone are the most high, Jesus Christ. We worship You, we give You thanks, we praise You for Your glory. Grant us now your peace. Amen. 

When he was in college he'd taken Mythology. The professor had droned on about the earth mother archetype and the Madonna myth, about the need to see women as pure. That it was something created by a male dominated society in a need to keep women in their place. 

Sam had gone home for a weekend, watched his great aunt Maria pray to the Blessed Virgin in her pure Castillian spanish, watched her eyes fill with strength and he'd known the professor was completely and utterly full of shit. 

There was some reason the archetype existed. And it had nothing to do with keeping women in their place. And if it had been subverted to that purpose, Sam hoped those men rotted in purgatory until they forgot what a dick was. But that was not the reason for the archetype. 

A knock. Hesitant. Soft. 

Cooke? Sam got up, padded over to the door, unlocked it. Averman. 

He went back to his bed, turned on the lamp. Averman sat down on the chair. 

"What happened out there?" 

Sam shrugged. 

Another knock. This time Sam knew who it was. 

He opened it. Cooke came in, sat on the floor. Looked at the carpet. 

"He's going crazy." The voice was soft, gentle. 

Averman exchanged a look with Sam. 

"Yeah," Averman replied. 

"My father is in one of the most expensive nut houses in Boston because of Korea," Cooke said without looking at anyone. "Don't let them put him in a place like that." 

Averman swallowed. Oh God. Oh God. 

"It was Her. Wasn't it?" Cooke stared at Rodriguez accusatorially. "She came and the Fucking storm waited on her." 

Rodriguez said nothing. Stared at Cooke. 

"This place isn't real. It was real this afternoon when I was in front of the camera. It was real when I was answering questions. This place isn't fucking real anymore," Cooke recited. 

No one knew what to say. Mulder would have known. 

"What do we do?" Sam asked. "You know what we should do. You should put him on a plane tomorrow and report his behavior bluntly." 

Averman did not reply. They all knew the procedure. 

"If we do, there'll be more dead babies. We'd still be swinging our dicks around, trying to get hard ons," Averman finally said bluntly. "If Mulder's right he's killed six children. And he's going on a spree now that he knows we're interested." 

"So what do we do?" Cooke's voice was sharp, acidic. "You can't hide this. Mulder's lost it. Completely and utterly. Delusory." 

"You saw him reciting T.S. Eliot and making a prediction about a killer. Want to bet that when we wake him he'll have a perfectly logical reason for his knowing figured out. Perfectly logical to anyone with a 200 IQ, of course, but it will be," Sam replied, slamming his fists against the bed. 

"No one has to know." Averman's voice was cold. Analytic, devoid of emotion. Just call him Mr. Fucking Spock. "It was just eight agents, who will be willing to cover anything up so they don't have to deal with what they just saw, or willing to go along because of what they just saw. He can get us through this case and then back to DC and I'll call in my favors and get him a leave of absence, tell them, I don't know. . .I'll think of something that they'll bite. . .he can see my friend." 

"Cover up something like this? That's grounds for dismissal." Cooke's voice wavered. 

"They'll stuff him so full of Thorazine they'll have to show him where to take a shit. He'll sit in the day room and stare at the sun making patterns on the wall and some Occupational Therapist will come by and give him plastic scissors to . . ." 

"Shut up!" Cooke's voice was choked. "Just shut the hell up! Okay?" Sam shut the hell up. Oh yes he did. 

"He'll be all right in the morning won't he?" Averman's voice again. Still cold. 

Sam took a deep breath. It hurt to breathe like that, hurt through and up and around his lungs and he couldn't really think. "Yeah. Oh yeah. He'll be fine, if I know Spooky Mulder. He won't talk about it at all." 

"I'll get the other agents. Meyers and Williams will be easy." 

"I can convince Tyler," Cooke said tiredly, wiping his face. 

"You'll get Mulder his drugs?" 

Sam nodded. 

"Take him to Guiterriez first thing tomorrow morning. Call him. Let him know how important it is now." 

Another nod. Sam got up. 

"Where're you headed?" Averman asked. 

"I'm going to look through his stuff." 

He went across to the other room, feeling cheap and disgusting and not caring. He heard Cooke and Averman talking and then the door opening and closing. And silence. 

Clothes and porn. Big deal. Some condoms. Good man. 

Heterosexuals gonna have some real bad surprises in a couple of years if they don't start using these. . .Sam popped the aluminum briefcase open. Case files. Case files. Okay, he should be hitting the old profiles, the old q and a, the theoretical stuff the. . .red and white edged folders. . . .Sam read a tired stamp, inhaled in the dim light given by the lamp. "X-File." He flipped through, trying to think of something logical, something that made sense. Oh God. Oh God. X-File. X-File. X-File. X-File. X- File. Dumping ground for ghosts and ghouls and UFO's. For psychics and faith healers and entity rape. Fifteen X-Files. Sam snatched them up. Ten or eleven of them, left a couple of them lying in the bottom. It was raining and rain was getting on confidential FBI files and Sam was cold and his feet were tender against the concrete. But he pounded and pounded on Averman's door. Averman opened the door, was instantly alarmed. "What? Is he. . ." 

Sam rushed in dumped the files on Averman's bed. "Oh God. He's. . .God. . ." 

The files spilled onto the rumpled spread, lay, mute accusers of an insanity that Sam had never suspected, never thought about, never dreamed ran and travelled and tunnelled in the dark passages of Fox Mulder's head. 

"We need to send him back. He goes back tomorrow. We need to call ahead and make arrangements." Sam swallowed the nausea, the fear that he was betraying Marion, and the fear that if he didn't he'd watch his friend spiral into the dark forever. 

Averman stood next to him, looking at the files Frito was pulling apart. The sucking sound of wet paper pulled from wet paper was the only sound for a moment. Then Averman sighed and ran his hand over his short, grey brush cut. 

"What's this about, Sam? What are all these? Why you so upset at a few files after all that's gone on tonight, son?" Sam looked up at him, face shadowed by the lights behind the bed, next to him. Averman looked at him, saw the oval face pale under the Spanish-dark skin, softly defined features now haggard, and the wild look in dark brown eyes. Soft, good looks of Spanish aristocracy, California Hidalgo, distorted by fear and worry and a primitive dread that confused Averman. Sam's compact body was trembling with a barely restrained panic, as Averman directed him into a chair, got him a glass, poured just a tot from the flask he had in his luggage. 

Sam sipped at the amber liquid, let the burn of it fight the chills that had nothing to do with being wet, or with the air-conditioning. "I. . . I. . . " He was stammering. 

Averman picked up his own glass, took a file and started glancing through it, letting Rodriguez sip his drink and calm down a little. Abduction case, about fourteen years old. Strange that he'd never seen this kind of code on anything. . . 

"I looked through Francis'. . . through Mulder's briefcase and found those, like, eight of them." Averman glanced up to meet his eyes, saw the real fears and concern there. Nodded and let Sam go on, taking in the rapid, flat tone as well the words. "I looked at them, and they're crazy, just crazy. Why anyone would look, why Marion would. . . " just rattling through the words at first. Let him get it out of his system, exhaust that hysteria he'd needed to let out for hours now. "He's right around the bend. He must've been around the bend for. . . for. . . Oh god. How did I miss it?" He was sitting there, drink cradled against his forehead. 

Averman watched Sam, saw his eyes go far away, then close, and could almost hear the doctor playing back months, maybe years. Looking for any hint or clue he could recall. Averman had seen men, men he'd commanded, slip into the dark and never come back. He knew the look, and he'd seen the look on Sam's face in the mirror each time, seeing himself let a friend slip past the point of no return. 

"Sam!" Averman's voice, just barely raised. The AIC took Rodriguez' glass and recharged it, handed it back to him and sat, waiting for the doctor to look at him. "Sam, listen to me, son. Calm down now. I need you thinking clearly." 

Sam fixed on him. He swallowed again, tried to choke down the panicky sense of failure, of having lost one he should have caught. He'd lost people in his residency, as an attending, he'd had friends and family die, but he'd never lost a friend on the table. The fact that Fox was going mad was only worse, in Sam's eyes. How did you pull someone back from that? How did you get past knowing that the body was sitting in some hospital, drawing with crayons, smiling at nothing. 

Averman had seen this before. Seeing it once would be one time too many. His voice carried a weight of knowledge that cut through Sam's misery. "Calm down. It got scary tonight, didn't it? Don't know about you, but I have never, in my entire life, seen anything like what happened out there tonight. I know it was poetry. I know he remembered it, put something together, figured something out. But it still sounded like the Sermon on the Mount. You've got a perfect right to feel like you do. But not over these." He shook the files he held in the air, watched Sam track them like they were rattlesnakes. "These are just files, open cases, somebody's fears and illusions reported to some poor agent. Poor bastard had to go out and look the ground over, and came back with an open case and a good campfire story. Happens all the time. 

So Spooky's looking them back over. Fine, no problem." 

Sam had finally stopped breathing so fast, could finally take a drink without his hands shaking. Averman nodded, watching him calm down. Curiosity was finally replacing panic, though the worry was still there. Averman dredged up a chuckle from somewhere, watched the doctor relax a little more. "Hell, after what we saw tonight, who knows? Spooky may just be able to solve these things. So he's got some unsolved crimes, weird crimes. So what. That's what this one is, and we're all here. Sam, if he wasn't here, this one would be another campfire story, and a batch of dead kids. And someone ten years from now would look at it and shake his head. That kid is really sick. He needs help, but after tonight, I figure we need help, too. And he can give it to us. These," shaking the files again, "aren't what I'm scared of with that kid. So there's little grey men in here. I'm almost relieved. At least now we've got an idea where THAT came from." 

Sam gulped, took another sip of scotch. "You figure PTSD, and he just picked up this stuff and added it to. . . whatever he's already seeing?" 

"Could be. Makes more sense than that he's seeing little grey men on his own, don't you think? Let's let Guiterriez think about that, why don't we? After all, our only shrink is the one who needs to get shrunk." 

Finally. A smile out of Rodriguez. The little spic'd be okay. He just got rattled tonight. Averman hesitated, debated asking, finally just walked into it. "You really got shook by the old woman tonight. You're Catholic, aren't you?" No surprise when Sam nodded. "She make you feel like the Virgin herself just walked into the room?" The hesitation wasn't a surprise, either. Admitting faith these days was like admitting you didn't walk under ladders, or let black cats cross your path. Averman had the distinct feeling that Mulder's beliefs weren't the only thing bothering Sam Rodriguez. "I know my mam raised me believing in Jesus-Christ-Our-Savior, and 'Nam made me believe in the devil on Earth. That old woman tonight, well, she put the chills up my back, too." Averman sipped his drink. "I do know there's more out there than we know, and that Spooky Mulder is hardly the scariest thing around. Fact is, I'm glad he's on our side. We'll get him to Guiterriez first thing in the ay-em. Don't worry, Sam. We're gonna get the kid help. I'm not ready to call DeeCee and tell them to lock him up on tea and Thorazine. I'm not ready to do that yet at all." 

Continued in part 8.................... 

=========================================================================== 

From: livengoo@tiac.net Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 8/41 NC-17 Date: 28 Jan 1996 02:19:40 GMT 

Oklahoma (Part 8/41) By Amperage and Livengoo Copyright October, 1995 

International Readers: No third season spoilers Rating: NC-17 for language and violence 

Fox Mulder and the X-Files are the creation and intellectual property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting. The FBI is the property of the US Government. Oklahoma and Louisiana and Texas belong to exactly who you think they'd belong to, and everything else belongs to Amperage and Livengoo. 

_____________________ 

"This really fucks the duck." Fox Mulder stood outside the coffee shop, rolling a toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other, and glaring at the flat, yellow-hot Oklahoma sky. His suit was GQ perfect, creases all in place, in spite of a steaming morning of body-cavity heat and humidity. Cooke, red-faced with heat and shaky with fear, watched him and waited for the sky to fall. 

Averman was still settling the bill when Frito joined them. Marion tossed the toothpick into the clumped dust left by the rapidly drying storm waters. "Can we finally get this cluster fuck on the road? We've got people to find, places to do." Hitchens walked out, knocking loose a cigarette from a fresh package, ignoring the disgusted looks both Mulder and Rodriguez gave him. He'd been trying to quit. He wasn't trying this morning. 

Spooky glared around him, taking in the nervous looks, the jumpy, startled movements every time one of these chicken-chokers caught him looking at them, any time he made a sudden move. Even Frito, for Christ's sake, was jumpy as hell this morning, and Mulder'd had about enough of this shit. Hitchens fled to the safety Bond's car, leaving Mulder with Averman, Frito and Cooke, while the others packed off in their usual teams and dispersed on whatever snark hunt Averman had picked for them. Cooke, unfortunately, showed no signs of going away. He jittered along behind them as they headed to Averman's car. 

"So," Spooky dropped into step next to Averman, "you've got the Four Stooges back at Social Services?" 

"Yeah. I think you had a good lead going there, and I want it checked top to bottom." Averman unlocked the driver's door, hit the override to unlock all the doors. Cooke grabbed the front passenger seat fast, before Mulder could get it, trying to ignore the poisonous look Spooky turned on him. He didn't need the leg room, but God knows he didn't want Spooky even that near the wheel, and he wouldn't sit in back with him to save his soul. Let Rodriguez play those games. 

Frito slid in next to Marion, putting his briefcase at his feet. He'd been watching Francis all morning, trying to see any signs of. . . he didn't even know what. Anything. Nothing. Francis slung himself into the back, then startled as Averman hit the override again, locking all the doors. Childproof locks, Frito noted. They wouldn't be able to unlock them unless Averman hit his switch. He swallowed and waited. 

Francis licked his lips. Not quick and nervous, a slow, deliberate motion as he collected his temper and leaned forward. 

"Why don't you lean back and put the seatbelt on?" Mulder frowned. Averman pulled back, out of the parking lot and towards Oklahoma City. Sam watched openly now, as Marion sat bolt upright and stared around him at the road. 

"We're going the wrong way." His voice was soft, definite. Sam suppressed the shudder up his spine, saw Cooke twitch. Marion leaned in between the front seats again, visibly calming himself. "Turn around, Averman. We're going the wrong way." 

"I don't think so, son." Ignoring the sudden, angry frown, the intentional control of temper. Sam pulled his briefcase up onto his lap and flipped off the catch. Quietly, quietly, please God. 

"Averman, I'm telling you. She's back the other way. We need to go get her, now, before we lose any more time." Marion was keeping his voice steady and reasonable, even though his fingers were digging into the cloth of Averman's seat back. Cooke was trying not to cringe away from him. 

"We got time, Mulder. We'll go see her, we will, but we've got an appointment in Oklahoma City first." 

Sam saw Marion's jaw flex as his teeth ground together hard. Saw his knuckles go white. "Averman, there's another storm blowing in. There's bugs and birds and every fucking thing that crawls and flies and eats dead meat." Jesus. Controlled, low grind of a voice that he had to be pulling out of his guts. Frito opened his case, thankful that Marion was so focused on Averman he never noticed. Load a syringe and pray to God you don't need it. Pull out the Valium they'd picked up last night before. . . before Mulder called down the storm and the hag. And try not to remember that, try to focus on an agent in psychological distress, possibly delusional, and very possibly about to snap right here. 

"Marion." He looked around at Sam's pale, tense face. "Marion, it won't rain yet. We have time. We'll just go to Oklahoma City first. . . " and watched Francis' face twist itself into a smile he'd never seen before. Bitter, angry and so, so alone. 

"You don't believe me. You think I'm. . . " Marion swallowed, stared as Sam's face told the truth his tongue could choke. And the smile was gone, a crafty, calm look in its place. Averman's eyes were flickering from the mirror to the road. Cooke's eyes rolled all the way over to watch without turning. Mulder pulled his knees around, half-turned to stare into Frito's wide eyes. "All right, you think I'm out of my mind. I can live with that." He smiled, careful and under control, his pale color the only thing that betrayed that calm, rational expression. "I quoted Eliot last night. Fire Sermon. With deletions." He half smiled. "It was one of my favorites at Oxford. I know it by heart. I'd know it even if I didn't have an eidetic memory. So I know it's not Eliot that's spooking you this morning." God, his voice was so smooth this morning, oil slicks on the Potomac. 

"I'm telling you, we're missing a chance. We've already lost some of the evidence on that poor kid. He's already picked up the next one. We can't afford to lose any time on this one. But you don't believe me. All right. What don't you believe? That I know, or that there's a body there?" Sam could feel where this was going. Averman had dropped to sixty-five, and trucks and rust-junkers were tearing past him, horns blaring. 

Spooky's voice was rich, hundred-year-old cognac, dark, and smooth, and the bite on it was vicious. Sam watched the logic trap close and couldn't summon a word to stop it. "Either way, you don't believe. So what harm is there in looking where I want to look? We don't find a body, I go with you. We do whatever it is you want me to do. I won't argue. But we do find a body. . . " Fox Mulder's pupils were huge, despite the flat glare of the Oklahoma landscape under the merciless sun. "But you don't think that will happen. So there's no problem." His smile was charming and assured, and his dark, steady eyes gave it the lie. 

"Doesn't make a whole lot of sense from where I sit, son." Averman's voice was brisk and cool in the front seat. "No body? We just waste time and we got to see a busy man." 

"A shrink." No question, a flat statement of fact instead. 

"You have to admit, your behavior is a bit unusual for FBI procedures." Mulder even smiled at Averman's gentle comment. 

"I'll be glad to admit just that, if you do what I want. I don't give two shits what you think of me, all I care about is the case." He was still leaning between the seats, speaking low and even to the AIC, ignoring the way Cooke cringed from him. "It's a win-win situation for you, Averman." Mulder's voice held a coaxing lilt. "We spend just a little while, a detour. There's no body, and I'll be glad to go calmly to talk with your shrink. No problem. Be glad to. And you win. And if I'm right, and there is a body, then you get valuable evidence. And you win." 

"And you still go to my shrink? Even if we find a body?" God, Averman's eyes were fixed on the road, Mulder's voice in his ear. Frito could not believe the bargain being struck. 

"Sure. Whatever you want. I'll go jump through his hoops." 

"And what if I say 'no', son? What if I just drive us in to Oklahoma City?" Mulder had one shoulder past the bottle-neck of the seats and was watching the road and wheel as steadily as Averman. Cooke was hyperventilating. 

"If you decide to drive in to Oklahoma City," Spooky's voice was calm, and rational and confident, "then you will need whatever it is that Frito's got in his case to get me there. And you had better pray it works fast." Oh fuck, oh Jesus and Mary, Mother of God. Frito started to lunge but Marion was in motion and suddenly had one hand, steady and hard on the wheel. Cooke's shriek, and Averman's curse together didn't cover Mulder's soft laugh. "It's okay, I'm not taking us off the road." Frito flattened himself against the seat and tried to believe that. He couldn't see Averman past Mulder, but the car had barely twitched. 

"Just one detour. I don't care who you send me to after that." Not so calm now. Not begging, but asking so hard. "Please, Averman. Please. I didn't want to do this. . . we can't let him. . . he's already taken the next one, Averman. I can't let you throw her life away like that because you want me to go see some shrink this morning. The shrink can wait. Please turn around. I can tell you exactly where to go." 

Sam's hands were shaking. The world flashed by at sixty-five and they'd never stop in time if Spooky yanked the wheel. Mulder sprawled between the seats, the tape box gouging his ribs, but his hand was steady and he watched the road and waited for Averman to decide what their next move was going to be. 

Finally, slowly, he nodded and started to tap the brake, pull over to a U-turn in the center of the highway. Mulder let himself collapse in relief between the seats, breathing hard with the tension he'd let go. He stayed there until they had turned and were going back, then pulled himself back into the back seat. Looked at Frito and sadly closed the briefcase, took it away from him and put it on the floor. Sam stared at him, shocked and numb. Francis curled into a corner of the back seat and watched Frito, Cooke, and the passing landscape, with eyes lost beyond all hope. 

 

Red dirt in crumbling, cracked flats flanked the rutted excuse for a road. Averman's bureau buggy had struggled and bobbed to get this far, and seemed relieved to sit, ticking over, in the crushing light that ground the young soy fields into wilted wreckage. 

Averman hit the release for the locks, and Mulder was out of the car an instant later. The AIC and Frito emerged more slowly, gingerly picking a path across fractured, treacherous fields of sun-baked plates on mud, marred by Francis' heedless footsteps. Cooke didn't budge from the safe, almost cool interior of the car. 

Marion's white shirt was painfully bright out there, tall and scarecrow-thin where heat ripples distorted him a few hundred yards into the fields. A moment later he had sunk into the earth itself, and the two men following him broke into a run, stumbling as the soil gave under their feet. 

They found him in the irrigation ditch, bent, with his hands braced on his knees. Frito feared for a moment that he'd been sick again, would collapse. Then he saw the body reflected in the mirrors of his friend's shades. Let his eyes trail down the ditch, to see the shallow, muddy fluid disturbed by what should never have been there. 

The child looked like a hillock of mud at first, her body coated as the sudden water had taken her, then yielded her back up the night before. Frito could hear Marion's feet dragged from the sucking mud, then splashing back in as he carefully, slowly worked his way up the ditch to her side. Little speckles of mud marred his shirt, his suit pants, as he stood and rolled his sleeves. His face was expressionless when he leaned down to roll her over. The glasses flashed sun into their eyes when he looked up at them, straightened, threw his head back and screamed. Screamed again, letting it fade into hard, sobbing breaths. Sam almost felt, rather than heard, Averman gulp next to him. Mulder's face wasn't expressionless anymore. 

"She's been here. She's been alone since last night. We stood there and let him kill her. We told him he could kill her. We told him we *wanted* him to." The sentences rode breathless, dry sobs that wracked his chest and shook his shoulders. 

"Calm down, Mulder." Averman's voice had the soothing note Sam had heard the night before. A note Sam needed right then as surely as Marion. Averman held a hand out at the edge of the ditch. "Come out of there. I'll need to get the evidence team down there. Best you don't stir it up any more." 

Mulder's face pulled, forehead furrowed, teeth digging into his lower lip as he choked on the sobs of grief. Sam could barely hear him. "We lost her. . . I lost her again. . . I'm so sorry. . . I lost her again." Averman glanced at Frito, as much as asking what the hell to do now. Sam shut his eyes, sucked in air that hurt and burned, a solid mass that bruised his chest. Opened his eyes and stepped forward, letting the edge crumble and send him sliding down the bank to splash into filthy water and the sound of flies. Tried to ignore the crayfish he could see crawling across the body, ignore the reflections in Marion's glasses, fixed on what could only be a child's poor clay, abandoned in this lonely place. 

"Francis. . . Francis. C'mere." Wrapped an arm around his friend's back, half dragging him to the edge. He could feel the ribs through the thin material, feel the trembling as each breath shook the man. Francis reached a dazed hand up to take Averman's, and was pulled out of the ditch, with Sam guiding his feet safely up the crumbling bank. He stood, still dazed, staring across the flats while Averman helped Rodriguez, too. A glance back at the poor thing who could not be helped out of the mud, out of the slough. 

Averman and Rodriguez each took a thin, lean arm and guided Mulder back across the fields, slowly retracing their paths under a sun that lashed sweat from them, scorched their vision into a white blur, but that would, inevitably, give way to darkness. Little tremors ran through Francis every so often, shivering his muscles, but he let them draw him back to the car. Let them get him into the back, carefully guarding his head so it wouldn't strike the door as he got in. 

He stared back across the field they'd left, silent, face pulled into a private grief as Averman called it in and carefully pulled them away. The whine of the air conditioner announced the cooler air pumped into the car, but there was no relief to be had. Cooke stared at them, looked away fast, and kept his mouth shut despite the smell of mud and death that clung to them all. 

And finally, the car bumped onto blacktop, the tires droned up to speed, the world rushed away again in a long, washed-out blur with Oklahoma City at its end. But Mulder's eyes were still back there, on a field and a ditch and a shape that broke the water that should have been still and flat. 

 

 

It was eight stories up, a large office, furnished in dark cherry and mahogany furniture, in brocade and tapestries. When Averman went to the receptionist's desk, they were shown back immediately, no waiting. The room was large, with a view of downtown Oklahoma City a view of a sprawling city of green trees and springs and rolling little hills. 

Their shoes left a trail of mud on the rich carpeting, mud that had seen a young girl die. Common dirt and water mixed, obscene and holy against the plush backdrop of an office of psychiatry. Mulder stood by the window looking out. He did not stop his perusal when someone came in, as conversation swirled around him. He heard Averman talking to someone. He heard Sam. He heard them leave. 

The hand was gentle. 

Mulder did not turn. 

"I like watching the hills," the voice behind him said. 

Mulder said nothing. 

"Agent Mulder, please come and sit down." 

"Why? So you can tell them that I'm experiencing severe PTSD? That I hallucinate and get angry easily? That I'm having fucking flashbacks?" 

"Is that what's happening?" 

Mulder put a hand to the window, pressed against it. "No. But that's not what you'll tell them." 

"You don't know me. You don't know what I'll say." The voice was intelligent and educated, but it carried a trace of spanish in its deep baritone lilt. Frito was fluent in three languages and his voice carried no trace of an accent in any of them unless he wanted it to. 

"I know what you'll say." 

"Because you're a psychologist and you know what categories your behavior falls into?" 

"Yes." 

"You probably find this more frightening than an untrained person." 

Mulder did not respond. It was an opening. Too deliberate. Too easy for Guiterriez to get the answers he sought. 

"If you want to stay there and look at the city a while, all right. I'll wait until you want to talk." Guiterriez went away. 

Mulder looked at the city. 

He lost track of the time, staring at the vehicles, watching them until a building hid them, watching the sky pass over head. Watching the city, the skyline, the people and the streets he did not have to think about the girl. He replayed and replayed the day's events, trying to find some way he could have saved her, something he could have said. Instead he'd played by the rules, done what the FBI said. Oh Fuck his career anyway. A little girl was dead now and he'd known and just sat there quietly. 

He heard the knock, heard Guiterriez talking to someone. Recognized Averman. And then Averman went away. Realized he must have been standing in front of the window for over an hour. Realized what this meant about Guiterriez. 

He turned. "You cleared your schedule for me?" 

Guiterriez shrugged. "If I need to." 

Mulder stared at him. "You shouldn't do that." 

"Why not?" 

"I'm just one patient." 

"But you're the patient who needs me right now." 

"I don't need you." 

Guiterriez nodded. He wasn't going to fight. "Your friends are worried about you." 

Mulder turned back to the city, abandoned it after a few minutes more. He kept seeing faces in the glass. "Frito was born worried," he said, still staring out the window. 

"Would you like to sit down?" 

"All the seats are lower than your chair." 

"Never take a psychologist as a patient." Guiterriez was a big man, not fat, just tall and big muscled, with a neatly trimmed beard over his round face, and reading glasses that sat halfway down his nose. He picked up his pad of paper, a thin folder, and a tape recorder, moved from his seat in a desk chair to a love seat, spread himself out over the love seat. "They know all the tricks. There? Satisfied, Mr. FBI?" 

Mulder turned and sat down on the loveseat across from Guiterriez. There was a pile of mud where he had stood, like what a ghost might leave in a story you tell your kids on Halloween. *Halloween fires. Jump over the coals!* 

"Have you ever been in therapy?" 

"I. . .when I was a kid, and then a couple of times when policy mandated it." 

Guiterriez nodded, turned the tape recorder on. 

Mulder swallowed. "Can we come to an understanding?" 

Guiterriez considered him. "I don't know. Can we?" 

"If I tell you some things, you won't lock me away. I know what reality is. I'm not psychotic. I'm not going to hurt myself or hurt anyone else, I promise you that." He leaned forward. Cursing himself for wanting to tell anything, almost leaping out of his skin at wanting to tell someone and have them listen, listen and understand what it felt like, what he felt like, what seeing that body that hadn't been there yesterday had done to him. 

"I can't promise you. I can tell you that if you tell me things I won't tell anyone, not even your friends." 

Mulder rubbed his eyes. "That's not good enough." Never mind. He would go through the spiel. Make this short. Give the good explanations that would get him back in the field. It didn't matter. It really didn't matter. Tell the lies that made everyone happy with him. 

"Agent Mulder, there are two good hospitals in Oklahoma City. Right now, I'm contemplating them both. Trying to decide which one to send you to." 

Mulder looked up, color draining from his face. The man sitting in front of him wasn't bluffing. 

"Now, I want you talk to me and tell me the truth, but I can't make promises like that. I know you're hurting. And it's obvious to me from the way you came in here and just stood there, staring at the city that whatever's going on it's hitting pretty deep." 

Mulder shrank back against the pillow. "I'm not. . .I'm okay." 

"Don't feed me whatever line you've been feeding your friends. Tell me the truth. I'm not the overworked MSWs the Bureau hires. I'm not some sweet kiddie psychologist like whatever ones your parents sent you to. I work with disturbed adults. I'm not going to accept any lies." 

Mulder wrapped his arms around his chest, nodded, closed his eyes. The lies wouldn't work. He was dealing with a man with at least Mulder's own intelligence and training and twenty years of dealing with emotionally disturbed adults. He was dealing with someone who did not suffer his fools lightly. He was dealing with someone who would not be bluffed. In some strange, almost masochistic way he nearly welcomed it, even as he felt panic bursting in his chest and the warning that this man could destroy him, destroy everything. And he would never be allowed to find the truth. 

 

The fragile little corpse before him was quiet. She had been shot once, at the base of her neck, and died. The bullet had been cut out. And then the killer had cut out her eyes. And cut off her ears. He'd taken her child's nipples. He'd left her naked, except for some pink ribbon barrettes. Hand made barrettes that had fluttered in her clear blonde hair. Sam imagined some young mother sliding them into her daughter's hair that morning, sending her out to play, never dreaming that the monsters were swarming, swarming and licking their chops. They found the poem stuffed up her vagina. Sam could tell on this one. She had been a pretty little eight year old. Someone had fucked her fairly often in the past. 

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams In death's dream kingdom Those do not appear There, the eyes are Sunlight on a broken column There, is a tree swinging And voices are In the wind's singing More distant and more solemn Than a fading star. 

A tiny scrap of poetry. 

He stripped his gloves, went out of the room. Prayed to Mary that the child would come to her now, that it would be all right and Mary would help Francis. 

 

Mulder and Averman were sitting in a tiny lounge. Rodriguez came in, got himself a cup of coffee. Mulder's eyes were vaguely glazed over. Valium will have that effect, he reminded himself and quietly sat with them. 

"Are you done?" Mulder asked. "They wouldn't let me down to see the body." 

'They' was Averman and whom ever had been with him. "How did the meeting with Guiterriez go?" Sam asked softly. 

Mulder smiled. Sipped his coffee. "I'm a fucking nut case and I need a nice long stay someplace where there are lots of people there to protect me." 

Averman caught Sam's eye and nodded. 

"They can't prove involuntary yet," Mulder finished, staring at Sam. "What was the poetry?" 

Sam glanced at Averman, who shrugged. 

"What did he say we need to do?" he asked Averman. 

"Keep him quiet. Never let him alone." 

"God knows. I might fucking eat my gun or solve this case. What was the fucking poetry, Frito?" 

Sam sighed, fished around in his pocket for a copy. 

Mulder scanned it in a matter of seconds. "A short snatch shoved into a short snatch. He didn't tell us anything. Shit." Mulder put his head down on the scarred table. A technician came in got her coffee, watched the three strangers. 

"How badly was she scarred?" Mulder asked. 

"I'd guess there had been anal and vaginal penetration several times," Sam told him. "Not the killer. Nothing new." 

"Momma had a boyfriend. Boyfriend didn't have a job so he babysat," Mulder said numbly. "Were there hair ribbons or a necklace?" 

"Hair ribbons." The technician stared, figured out what they were talking about. Her face went white and she left. 

"Momma didn't give them to her. He did. He told her about Jesus and told her that he would take her to see Jesus. He was kind and gentle and he took her to Dairy Queen and he didn't hit her. She thought he was her daddy." Mulder closed his eyes, weary beyond all mention. He leaned back in his chair and for the first time Sam saw that his holster was empty. He glanced at Averman who shook his head. "He took the other body, another little girl out somewhere and buried it. We'll find it when we find the first body, no doubt. Our little girl was in the car and she played with a Barbie doll he'd bought her. Happiest days of her entire five years were four days riding around in the car of a serial killer. And she knew what he was going to do, but she was so happy, because he was taking her to Jesus. 

"Who is the third who walks always beside you? When I count, there are only you and I together But when I look ahead up the white road There is always another one walking beside you Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded I do not know whether a man or a woman --But who is that on the other side of you?" 

Mulder's voice was soft, gentle. "Momma hasn't reported her missing because she thinks the boyfriend killed her. And in a way he did. He sold her to the killer for some money. Probably enough to get his car fixed and get out of town." 

He swirled the coffee in his cup. "He's not here anymore. He's in Ashton. I don't know. Probably a boy first." Mulder swallowed. "Is Oklahoma City a big enough city to accommodate fetishes? Have dungeons?" 

"Why do you want to know?" Averman asked. 

"Because I want to go get spanked." Mulder grinned. "Do you remember I asked for a list of drifters killed? He was. . .he used to like being spanked or being given enemas, something like that. . . it was one thing someone used to do. . .It could have happened in Tulsa, I guess." 

"What about Dallas?" Sam asked sharply. "I know there are several places like that in Dallas." 

Mulder glanced at Sam, smiled. "Yeah. He could have visited Dallas. Do I want to know *how* you know that?" 

"What? It's not like I'm going to fuck you." 

"Oh right. I see the way you eye my butt. You dream about slamming me in the rump. Admit it. You have raging wet dreams about fucking the Fox." 

"Don't confuse your fantasies with mine. Just because you want a piece of the old Sammiester doesn't mean I want anything to do with your sick, VD-ridden, chocolate canal." 

"Dream on. Me? Want that shrivelled up piece of manhood? You're lucky you married an Anglo, Frito, you swaggering piece of Spanish machismo. Any good Hispanic girl would have laughed herself silly the moment you dropped your drawers and showed her that one eyed reptile." 

"Oh right. And you're any different? Yeah, I know most people think you're really well hung, but I think it's some kind of falsies for dicks. You go swimming and come out and nothing's shrunk. That's fucking impossible. Your balls should be crawling straight up your ass and instead there's a wad the size of a fucking softball." 

Mulder grinned. "You want to go skinny dipping and see?" 

"Hah. You *are* interested in me. I got you, Francis." 

"Oh yeah. And I also want to dress up in a skirt and hose and wear my mommy's make up." 

"Oh, bucking to be director now that the slot is open?" 

"Somebody has to fill those pumps." 

"Excuse me." Averman's voice cut through their banter. "Can we get back to the case?" 

Sam grinned broadly. "What? Hitting a little close to home Averman?" 

"I draw the line at menage a trois and I haven't been able to fit into a girdle in years," Averman replied easily. "So you're saying he what? He took someone home and killed them?" 

"Umm. . .yeah. A night of buttbeating or water up the old sphincter and he killed him. I don't think he meant to. He feels guilty about killing the guy." 

"But not about the kids?" Averman asked, watching him. 

Mulder shook his head. "He figures he's doing the kids a favor and preaching to the unsaved all at one time." 

"Is this guy a minister?" 

Mulder stared at Averman. "I already told you, his father was the minister." 

"What is he?" 

Mulder shrugged, did not answer. His drug filled eyes were dull with exhaustion. "He has money. He doesn't have a formal education, but he made lots of money," he said wearily. "Can we go take our nap, Frito, or do I have to seduce Cooke?" 

Sam smiled, but his heart raced with fear that Mulder was asking to go, asking and not making up some excuse. 

Averman sighed and the look he gave Sam explained a lot. Francis had very nearly come apart in Guiterriez' office. 

"Yeah. Come on. You're the only thing I've got since Jenni cut me off." 

Mulder rose wearily, staring at nothing. "All right. But I'm on top today." 

Continued in part 9............... 

=========================================================================== 

From: livengoo@tiac.net Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 9/41 NC-17 Date: 29 Jan 1996 04:09:54 GMT 

Oklahoma (Part 9/41) By Amperage and Livengoo Copyright October, 1995 

Housekeeping note: For those who couldn't find Oklahoma 6, I did post it but forgot to number it. It's the Oklahoma with no numbers after the title. Sorry about that. Goo 

International Readers: No third season spoilers Rating: NC-17 for language and violence 

_______________________ 

Marion relaxed back into the seat, closed his eyes. Frito turned the ignition and debated locking the doors, but decided not to add insult to injury. The city streets were lined with cottonwoods the cool green of human intervention, but the land's true desolation reasserted itself as they left the city limits. 

Dusty flats had surrounded them a long time when Marion's voice startled Frito from the boredom of the drive out to the motel. "Frito, you actually believe in God, don't you." It might have been a question. It might not. Rodriguez paused, long and long, wondered at it, finally nodded. 

"Yes. I don't believe in God the way I was taught, but I believe there is a God." 

"I'm afraid to believe in God." The voice was a pale whisper, dry as the dust in the air. Sam waited, half-hoped for more, but the silence held and only the engine spoke, until finally they pulled in and even that fell quiet. Marion seemed to shake himself back from wherever he'd been as Sam got out of the car. He moved slowly, carefully, as though things wouldn't stay where he thought they were. He jumped when Sam slammed his car door, closed his own so softly it barely caught. 

Rodriguez kept Francis in the corner of his eye as he turned and started for the stairs, made certain his friend was following before he started up the step. The cool dark of the rooms was a haven, and Francis seemed half-asleep already. Frito paused to see if he'd pull his own jacket off, not wanting to have to treat Marion like a child. Breathed a sigh when Francis stripped of the jacket and kicked off his shoes. He didn't sprawl in sleep, relaxed and comfortable. He pulled into the center of the bed, lying on his side with knees drawn up and arms crossed over his chest. Frito watched until his breathing had settled into an even rhythm, and his face smoothed into enigma. 

Sam left the door open when he retreated to his own room, praying from habit, from lack of a better option, that Francis would rest easy and peaceful at least for this afternoon. He almost couldn't dial Jenni's number. He wanted to hear her voice so badly, he was so afraid she might not be there. When she answered, his vision blurred. 

"Hi. It's me." 

"Sam!" She sounded. . .like home. He heard her laugh, and he drew a shaky, painful breath. Suddenly she was still on the other end. 

"Sam? Are you all right baby?" He tried to answer, but the sniff caught him, and the sob deep in his throat, and tears were rolling down his face and he missed her. . .oh. . .so. . .much. "Oh god, baby." Her voice was an appalled whisper. "What is it, honey? What's happened? Are you hurt?" 

He wanted to tell her, wanted to stop, to be a man, to reassure her, but the sobs were shaking him and they hurt, they hurt. He tried to hang up, but he couldn't get his hand to let go of the phone, and her little sounds of comfort drew the pain like poison out of his soul. Samuel Alvarez Rodriguez curled onto his bed, around a pillow, listening to his wife's voice, and sobbed until his eyes were dry and his ribs were sore, and he couldn't cry any more. And Jenni listened, and she was there. 

When the sobs had stopped wracking him, and she could hear him gulping air instead of sucking it in painful, whistling breaths, could hear him blow his nose and picture him unwinding in exhaustion, she tried again. "Sam, baby, are you all right? Is Fox all right? Are. . . " but the catch in his breathing told her. 

"Oh god, Sam. Oh god, is he dead?" 

"No." He could hear something creak as she shifted, knew she'd heard even that whisper. "No, Jenni. Fox isn't dead, but. . . " what did you say? How did you tell your wife that your partner was going mad, was hearing the poetry of insanity, and following a killer's voice. Or, worse, was not going insane. 

"Sam, tell me. Are you hurt?" He smiled and the smile was painful on his face. 

"No. I'm okay. Nothing like that, no, not like that at all." 

"Then what? Honey, I'll get the next flight. . . " Did he want her here? Did he? A snatch of Marion's Eliot flitted through his mind. Did he want her 'In the circles of the stormy moon'? The words drove a shudder through him. 

"No. No. I'm sorry, I didn't want to worry you. . ." 

"Sam. . . " 

"I. . .needed to hear you so much. Jenni, I love you so much." 

"You're scaring me, Sam. Are you sure you're all right? Where are you right now?" 

"I'm in my room Jenni." Calmer now, at the still point of the turning world. "Marion. . . Fox, is asleep. He's. . . this case is really getting to him. He's having a lot of trouble on this one." Her long, sympathetic sigh told him of an understanding that she couldn't possibly have. 

"You poor thing. Both of you. It's got to be really hell. He's got you to talk to, but you. . . I can ask Daddy. . . " 

"No. No, I just needed to hear you, Jenni. I needed to know you're there, you'll be there, and you won't change. I need. . . " He bit his lip, couldn't find words that weren't sobs. She let him lie there, and just breathed for him, was just there for him. 

"Sam. You said you can't come home yet. I. . . this must be important to you. I'm here. I'll be here when you come home. I'll be here. I love you. I love you." 

"Jenni, I want to go to sleep now, but I don't want to hang up. Can you just. . . " 

"Baby, it's on the FBI's bill, and they owe us for this one." The chuckle in her voice made him finally smile. And she crooned to him as he slid into a darkness barely less haunted than the one that held Fox Mulder. 

 

The sound of a door opening rocketed him from sleep into a panic-stricken wakefulness. Dark, and the soft sound of motion in the next room and Sam remembered why his heart slammed against his ribs and his throat clutched in terror. Lunged off the bed and to his own door. He slammed it open, into the wall, and nearly scared Mulder into a heart attack. 

"What the fuck are you doing, Frito!" Marion's hands were up in a defensive stance, and his shirt fluttered with frightened panting. "Shit-cock-sucking-mother-fucking. . . Do you mind?" A door on the other side opened, and Averman stepped out, the light from his door brilliant in the dusk. 

"Where are you going, Marion?" Sam looked him up and down, took in sneakers, running shorts, FBI Academy T-shirt. 

"Cruising for real men, Frito. What the fuck does it look like? I was going for a run. Now I'm going for CPR." He took a visible breath, puffed it out, and turned to the walk away. Frito stepped out, blocking him one way while Averman blocked the other. 

"Why don't you give it a pass tonight, Mulder." Spooky turned, a long measuring look at Averman. 

"I'm not giving it a pass, *sir*, because I want to go for a run." 

"It's been a rough day, Francis. . ." Frito tried to make peace, keep him quiet. "Why don't you wait until morning?" 

Mulder's eyes were wide and black in the gloom. "I'm going running because I want to go running." A tone he'd use to explain to a five year old. "Because I'm bored. I want to run and think. It relaxes me. And I'm not under involuntary and I'm not under arrest." Averman stepped towards him, seeing Sam flinch at the words. 

"That's not called for, son. . ." 

"Fuck. You. Sir." Mulder turned a flat glare on Averman. "I'm going running. Sir. It's still legal to go running. Sir. You want, you can come with me, but get out of my way." Hard and low and final. Averman was not about to pick a fist fight with Mulder, particularly over such a stupid topic. 

"Give me a minute, son. You run, Sam?" Frito shook his head. 

"Nah, I think Neil Armstrong's right. We got only a limited number of heartbeats in our lives, and I won't waste mine running. That's why I have a wife, but Francis only has Rosie Palmer, so he runs." Thank God Marion grinned at that, relaxed and let Averman get changed. The AIC came out in an old shirt and shorts that announced a prior incarnation as a Marine. Tossed his car keys to Frito. 

"Here, pace car in case I need a pick up." Marion snorted, gave Averman a look of pure exasperation, but let it pass. Frito closed his door, and followed them down, caught up a tenth of a mile down the road, where he cruised at a crawl with his flashers on and totally frustrated the drivers desperate to get out of Oklahoma's "natural beauty" as quickly as possible. 

For the first three miles, Averman kept up pretty well. Right turn at two miles. Marion was probably planning eight miles. The young man ran steadily, but Frito could see Averman was flagging by the end of the fourth mile out, with four back ahead of him. Frito smiled and tapped the wheel, expecting company on the ride back. Five miles out and the AIC was laboring visibly, while Mulder ran like a machine, mindless, steady, pounding miles without any real attention to anything around him. When Mulder suddenly slowed and stopped, Frito shook his head in exasperation. Show off, running Averman out. So impressive, running out a man thirty years his senior. At least he was finally taking a rest. 

It wasn't until he pulled up abreast that Frito realized Mulder wasn't resting. He wasn't folded over his knees, catching his breath, he probably didn't even know Averman wasn't with him any more. Mulder was staring at the horizon, lips moving as if he was reading, tasting the words, not saying them. He spun, scanned back along the way they'd come, spotting the hotel's lights. And cut straight across the flat, hard-pan surface, running flat out. 

"Shit! Guadalupe hidalgo. . ." Sam breathed prayers and curses under his breath as he whipped the car back around in a three point turn and waited, cursing, for Averman to tumble into the passenger seat. Tore back to a right angled turn, whipped in, driving slowly, looking for a pale man in navy blue shorts and shirt, running. Not much to say to each other besides curses, just drive, slowly, hating the cars that blinded them with oncoming brights, hating the ones that tore past with horns blaring, hating Mulder and looking for him. And it was full dark out here. They reached the hotel, tumbled out, looking back now that the lights of traffic didn't dazzle directly, trying to see a tall, young man. Sam scrambled up the stairs while Averman paced along the parking lot, trying to see. Sam fumbled his keys, finally got the lock, was throwing himself past the corner of his bed and reaching for the phone when he stopped. Realized he heard tapping keys, a voice. Froze and felt the rich surge of fury in his gut. 

He held himself, held so hard and still. Then he went to get Averman, to keep himself from walking in and beating Fox Francis Marion fucking Mulder to a pulp. Averman stared at him when Sam stalked up. 

"He's inside." 

A long pause. "What?" 

"He beat us back. He's in there. He's typing." 

"But. . ." 

"You'd better talk to him, Jack. If I try to talk to him I'm gonna kill him." Frito knew it wasn't reasonable. He tried to choke it down, breathing fast with the effort, but all that fear and worry and. . .and. . . and Francis was here. Talking to himself. Typing. Frito was going to kill him if he walked in there just then. "I'll stay out here a few minutes. Go talk to him." Averman studied Rodriguez, thought about it. Was profoundly thankful that these two were based in D.C. and nowhere near his home in Oklahoma City. 

Mulder looked up at him with fever-shining eyes when he heard Averman's heavy step. He couldn't sit still, couldn't sit at all. Was standing, hunched over the keyboard, fingers flying and no care for spelling or anything so long as he could read most of it. 

"He saves them, Averman. He saves them. Sends them to Jesus, but their bodies, their bodies are in the wasteland, but that's too obvious, not right." 

"Slow down, Mulder. What are you talking about?" 

"What the thunder said, Averman. 

'Here is no water but only rock Rock and no water and the sandy road The road winding above among the mountains of rock without water If there were water we should stop and drink Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand If there were only water amongst the rock" His voice growled with emphasis, distracted and desperate as he typed. "They aren't saved, Averman. They can't taste the water. They're among the rocks. . . 

Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit There is not even silence in the mountains But dry sterile thunder without rain There is not even solitude in the mountains But red sullen faces sneer and snarl From doors of mudcracked houses 

If. . .there. . . were. . water" 

Spooky's voice trailed as he stood, frozen, over the keys. Rodriguez was standing behind Averman now, no longer angry, just staring. Averman heard him swallow, saw him calmly walk into his room and heard him open the briefcase. 

Mulder looked up, eyes glazed and reflecting the lights of the room. 

"What is that sound high in the air Murmur of maternal lamentation Who are those hooded hordes swarming Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth Ringed by the flat horizon only What is the city over the mountains" 

Frito was back, syringe loaded, watching Marion with sad, lonely eyes, letting him finish. Mulder's eyes tracked places that had nothing to do with an ordinary, slightly shabby motel room outside of Oklahoma City. 

"In this decayed hole among the mountains In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel There is the empty chapel, only the wind's home. It has no windows, and the door swings, Dry bones can harm no one." 

He paused again, so long they thought he'd done. His eyes slowly, slowly came closer, almost back to them, but then his voice whispered to them. . . 

"I have heard the key Turn in the door once and turn once only We think of the key, each in his prison Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison Only at nightfall, aethereal rumours Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus." 

He shut his eyes, and staggered, braced on the table in front of him. Sam Rodriguez, tears slowly staining his dark face, stepped forward and found muscle, above the hip. His friend barely twitched as the barrel of Valium slowly forced him back towards an empty, peaceful void. 

 

Mulder had typed a name. Ashton. A description. Averman stared at the writing. Glanced up to the man lying unconscious, quiet. He looked too young to be what he was. He looked too young. . . 

Rodriguez sat in one of the chairs, slumped, staring blankly at his friend. He and Averman had almost had to pick Mulder up, carry him to the bed. Like the night in the rain, whatever drove him had left him drained, exhausted. Sam's face was almost as young, vulnerable, when he glanced back at Averman. 

"Does it make any sense? Is it gibberish?" Averman could hear the listless resignation. Looked back at the paper and felt fear thrill into him. Looked up at Sam. 

"It makes sense, Sam. Here." He handed the sheet over. Watched Sam carefully sit up, reading it. The color drained from his face. 

"Oh my God. Oh my God." He looked up. Averman couldn't say it, didn't have to. If Mulder's raving made sense, it wasn't raving. It was truth. An ancient dread, from nights when men used fires to drive back the spirits sang there, under the electric lights. 

And Mulder kept silent, drugged company with his ghosts. 

 

Averman got them take out food for supper. He sent his apologies through Cooke, who went and ate with some other agents, and Sam knew that they'd be just as happy to have one meal without Spooky Mulder. Four men who hadn't asked to be taken on a ride into the spirit lands, who thought this was investigative work, logical and complete unto itself. 

Mulder was still asleep, spread out among the pillows like a dead Christ waiting for annunciation and for Mary to come with her tears. But Mary had already come once. Sam pulled off his friend's shoes, covered him with the other edge of the hotel spread. 

When they got to Ashton, they would have to deal with locals. The thought of Mulder out there, of the local police watching Mulder lose it, frightened Sam. He swallowed. Closed his eyes. Every day it got worse. Every day Mulder was losing more of his sanity, letting something else slip by him. He remembered taking Mulder to Guiterriez, watching Mulder go to the window and become oblivious. This afternoon, no calm relaxing, no baseball game. He'd gone to the center of the bed and tucked himself fetal. This morning, Mulder's look, throwing himself forward, taking over the steering wheel. And that scene with the little girl. Mulder hadn't been there, he'd been screaming and apologizing to someone not present. Someone who held a belt, someone who made him responsible for every fucking bad thing. 

Oh God. What world was this? 

It was the world of the dead and the priests. The mystics and the nuns in their quiet black robes before Vatican II. Oil of anointing and ash. Once there had been a place for men who moved in dreams, whose voices whispered of things unseen. They would have been called prophets and have had women sent to them, to be sure they bathed, to call in strong men when they went into passion and fits. 

Sam hugged his arms around himself and thought, whether to Aunt Tia or himself, or even Mulder, he didn't care to know. We give them Thorazine and put them where we cannot see. Science has outstripped the Myth and made it unlovely. Men like Francis have no place in our world. Latin. Once the church had reverenced itself in Latin, in the ancient and the mysterious. Tia Rosa, whispering to herself in the time worn tongue, praying for the babies who had died in her womb. Latin, with a sweet smell of incense and the dark of polished woods against sweating stone. But now there was no latin and the churches were bright. The priests were no longer mysterious, no longer unworldly in their long black robes. No longer does one kneel in confessional, staring at the darkened screen. 

Tia Rosa and the beads clicking against her fingers. Her mouth moving in diligent prayer. She would have known, before they laid her to sleep with her rosary and her Bible, dressed in her black widow's dress and her mantilla of handwoven lace. She would have seen his eyes and known. Known he was haunted with the power of God, doing holy work. `When he speaks with God, he cannot see himself.' Her voice was warm on his ear. Sam looked up. Francis was making tiny smacking noises in his sleep. 

We send them to psychiatrists and hold them down for injections to send them into darkness. 

Sam picked up the report and reread it. 

"Subjects is in Aston. He lived in Ashton when they first came here, travelling across the dust and the dirta nd anever knowing what theyr father was going to say. Momma was dead, the cancer came and took her in ther sleep and her face was like waxen slil. and srosepetals. When she died poppas face closed up tight and the children felt fear grow ni their harts. 

The knew what had happened. Everyone knew. His father's fingers hard against the little boys penis, his fingers deep in the sweet soft anus, breath heavy and the boy crying and not knowing." 

Sam looked up. Mulder's right hand was open, fingers curled. A casual invitation like that of God's. His scrotum tightened. He felt the breath come harsh across his mouth, dry like desert winds. 

"He told them stories abvout Harvard. His tongue was thick and the scotch whiskey always burned eligha when it went down. 

Ariel stole it for them. They drank it so their father would not hurt. And so it would not matter. 

So they drove across the painted sky and across the fields and theough the towns. Elijah stared at the chldren ad wondered if they knew the feel of their father's dick as it slid in and thraobbed and you screamed but he did not hear you and the little ones were asleep in the back room. He saw ones who knew and they stared at each other, as their worlds slid past each other, resolute. Their cousin was a tall man. Elijah had not known he was Indian. Eastern towns with tall trees and friends and his mother ad graduated Radcliffe. Harvard Divinity SChool, that was Daddy's realm. 

His aunt held him down and gave him enemas, gave them to all the children, said they were good, Elijah saw his father's look. He was clean now when he turned around and he did not scream, feeling the forbidden whiskey course in his veins. He only screamed when Uncle beat Ariel for stealing whiskey to make it through the nights. 

Ariel. . .Ariel did not see the rock. Cleft the rock and water will pour out. Reverend Coop preached the funeral. Father cried for the first time." 

Sam swallowed, tried to think, tried to move someplace past a small house and tortures done to children because they had the audacity to be born. Oh Tia Rosa. Can you pray for him in heaven Tia Rosa? 

"Reverand Coop prayed with his father and they spent long nights on their knees and the whiskey was forbidden and Elijah had to steal. 

They travelled in a tent. 

the heathen are come into thine inheritance and the tympel have they defiled 

His father held the bible in one hand and his white shirts dripped sweat. He never touched another child. But for Elijah and SArah, and Nehamiah, and Rebecca. Elijah wanted his father to do him, but he got too tall and dark hairs curled in his forbidden places. Reverend Coop caught him stroking his penis one night and beat him until he could not stand. 

The tents rippled under hot oklahmoa suns and his father told about the idoltary of the over educated. Sodom and Gomorrah were aomng the college boys. Here there were good, simple people, and he had been saved. 

But at night his father read them Eliot. His mother had read it aloud over their cribs. Insteadof nursery rhymes. disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose petals. It was his kindest voice, his gentlest self. It was the only good thing left. 

The hair was dark and he hated it. He went to Reverend Coop and Reverend Coop taught him about the love of men. 

Rebekkah cried when their father took her. Cried and cried and stopped eating. Elijah kept her with him, when he could. When he got dark hairs his father didn't want him anymore. He wanted the other ones. and the reality between the motion and the act falls the Shadow 

Nehamiah found their uncles rifle and two sobs stopped one night. The police said it was an accident. Elijah failed them both. He lay on top of the graves at night, so far from his mother's sweet Massachuesetts dirt. His uncle hit him for it. His father said nothing. 

Sarah ran away. 

Elijah went out into the plains to find her. He found her near a spring of soft waters. Just her body, bloated and gone. He sat with her and he buried her. He understood then. It was all right. The children were with Jesus. And it was all right. 

He hated the police who came to question and never stayed, knew but never said. 

There is a place beyond all space and time. Right action is freedom" 

Sam slid down the wall, staring at Mulder, his mouth half open, as he struggled up into REM like it was a high mountain. Sam checked his watch. Three hours. Too soon. 

"Dallas. He was 15 but he looked older. The warmth of men curled warm around him. 

Forestlawn. A church, an indoor tent, and the minister smiling his bible in one hand. 

They loved to let him work with the children. He was 16 and he looked 22. And no one questioned him. One of his RA's father was fuckinghim. Nehamiah was dead. 

He beat the man to a bloody pulp. The police came out but no one ever pressed charges. He cried in the pastors study and whispered of darkness and his father's slickened penis and Nehamiah dead. Thechurch paid for a hopsital until he could remember that he was grown. The DA did not want to prosecute. 

Warm gentle hands. They called him nephew, and he kept the secret and protected him. They told him 

A man named Gates made sense. 

Unreal City. 

Ashton, where the children laughed at him. Ashton where his Aunt's clean bathrom and her smirk. There are children. He is preching to the sinner. 

He kills them then mutilates. Preching us. 

The children run to him, because he means them no harm. There areno tears in the dark. 

He sends them to Jesus. Nehamiah was right. 

The church is so very small. But in it there is light. And Jesus saves them all. 

The pain of livng and the drug of dreams Curl up the small soul in the window seat Behind the Encyclopedia Britannica. Issues from the hand of time the simple soul Irresolut and selfish, mishapen, lame, Unable to fare forward or retreet, Fearing the warm realty, the offered good, Deny the importunity of the blood, Shadow of its own shadows, spectre in its own gloom, Leaving disordered papers in a dustyroom Living first inthe silence after the viatcum." 

Sam read the last twice. Wondered who Francis was speaking of, himself or the killer. And then finally understood that it didn't matter. 

Averman came back in with the food. Saw Sam's whitened face. Marion turned and curled more tightly on the bed. He was not the inopportune Christ but a simple child, huddled against the loss of body warmth, huddled into a tiny space. 

He walked deliberately into Sam's room and Sam followed, half shut the door. 

"He. . .is any of this true?" Sam asked softly, cursing himself for a fool. "Or is this in Mulder's mind?" 

Averman pulled out styrofoam containers. Handed one to Sam. "Barbecue brisket and links," he said. Sam opened the dinner. Any other time the food would have smelled sweet. 

"Do you go to church?" Sam asked, accepting the waxed paper cup of coke. 

"Most Sundays," Averman replied, looking up surprised. "Why?" 

"You got any kids?" 

"Two. Both grown." 

"Did you take them to church?" 

"Yeah. One actually still goes regular. The other will once she's calmed down." 

Sam nodded. "I haven't been in three or four months. It always seemed so. . .stand up, sit down, kneel. Stand up, sit down, stand up. . .watch the priest, take communion, go home. . .And Jenni doesn't like it much." 

"Your wife?" 

"Yeah. She's. . .she converted because she knew how important it was in my family. But it was just so everyone would be happy. Not for real." 

Sam shrugged, tore some brisket off and ate it with his fingers. "Francis doesn't believe in God. He said God scared him." 

"God took his little sister away," Averman replied. "And then the ministers came and said it was God's will. It was God's will for him to be beaten." 

"What did Guiterriez tell you?" 

Averman considered his own plate, slowly ate some potato salad. "Mulder's concentration is. . .poor, his mind wanders. There's some evidence of exaggerated startle reflexes. . . Guiterriez said the rest was mostly guessing. Mulder wanted to talk to him, he could see that, but talking scared the shit out of him. He thinks there may be some reality impairment, not so much Mulder isn't functioning. Probably some paranoid and magical thinking. . .but not delusional. Not yet." Averman swallowed. "Mulder admits to abuse after his sister's disappearance. Guiterriez thinks it was continual, since early childhood. But that Mulder admits to the abuse he does because he believes himself responsible for his sister's disappearance. He. . .thinks his dad was right for battering him." Averman's voice was tight. "His fault for everything, so the abuse was all right." 

Sam pushed the barbecue tray away. Stared at it distastefully. Felt his stomach draw up. 

"You haven't read that FBI file on the sister yet, have you?" 

"No." Sam put his head between his knees and tried to breathe. 

"He was twelve, in the eighth grade." 

"Eighth grade?" Sam looked up, puzzled. "My niece is fourteen. She's in the eighth." 

Averman shrugged. "Think about Fox Mulder and tell me a school system might not want to push him through as quickly as possible. Umm. . .It's November, right before Thanksgiving. He's left to babysit the sister. She's in the third grade, eight or nine. Parents come home and the lights are all off. Fox is on the carpet, huddled up. The family gun is beside him, unfired. No sister. He was catatonic four days. When he came out of it, he didn't remember diddly. He still doesn't. The Fibbies they sent out spent several days investigating the kid." Averman made a disgusted face. "Waste of time. He didn't kill her. No evidence, no clues. Just a little girl gone. Umm. . .all the fuses in the house were blown, melted I guess, if that makes any weird kind of sense. The case was never officially put into the X-Files, but it belonged there. That's probably why Mulder's reading them." 

Sam swallowed. There was a strangled noise next door. Sam was up immediately. Mulder was not on the bed. Oh God. Oh God. Mother of God hear our prayers. _____________________ 

Continued in part 10.................... 

=========================================================================== 

From: livengoo@tiac.net Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 10/41 NC-17 Date: 30 Jan 1996 05:19:54 GMT 

Oklahoma (Part 10/41) By Amperage and Livengoo Copyright October, 1995 

International Readers: No third season spoilers Rating: NC-17 for language and violence 

______________________ 

"I need the autopsy reports." Mulder's voice emerged from the bathroom. They heard him pee, heard the toilet flush. "I need to know if there were any links at Social Services. I need the photos from the last crime scene." 

He stepped out from the bathroom, eyes blood shot, FBI academy shirt filthy. His step was springy. 

And the dead will rise on that day and speak again. 

"How are you feeling?" Frito asked softly. 

"I'm okay. You didn't have to drug the shit out of me." Francis smiled tolerantly, ran a hand through his hair. "I smell food." 

Averman nodded. "Why don't you come eat, and leave the work alone." It was a patented calming voice and Mulder turned to him, stared at the older agent, eyes narrowing. Decided it wasn't worth it. 

"I'll eat in a minute." Mulder stalked over to his bag, grabbed a clean t-shirt and a pair of shorts. He stripped, pulled on the clean clothes. "I haven't written any psych stuff in a couple days." He found his deodorant, rubbed some on. "They'll have my butt back at Quantico." Went over to the computer, back to his clothes bag. Swung his arms. Rifled through his clothes, didn't find anything. Threw his underwear on the floor, moved on. He moved and moved and made motions that went nowhere, just released some of the energy building up within him. 

"How much adrenaline are you pumping?" Sam asked quietly, leaning against the door frame. 

Marion paused, considered his friend. Smiled easily. "Just about seventy percent I'd guess." He went to his briefcase, dug around. "Thanks for screwing up my shit, Frito, you inbred hildago." 

Sam nodded. "You're manic, aren't you? Too much energy, can't stop moving." 

"Probably more than you want to know," Mulder replied. "But I'm not psychotic. I'm not." 

"Not yet. How much is it costing you to move around like a human being and not start just doing for the sake of doing?" 

Mulder shrugged, sat down at his computer, began rifling through files, rifling through documents, pulling what he wanted, tossing the rest right and left. No order. He stood, kicked the papers he had piled up. Frantic motions. Dances of a man who knew he was at the edge of losing control. 

Sam took a deep breath and expelled it. "If you don't want Cooke drooling at your butt you probably need a shot right now." 

"Let me get the report done," Mulder replied, frowning at something in his own thoughts. "Then I'll take your Valium." He put his hands on the chair, expelled breath. "I thought we had a police report on one of the kids. On the sexual abuse. I hadn't read it, but I thought we had it." He muttered to himself, stood straight, went to the door, turned around, paced to the desk. 

"No Valium," Sam replied softly. 

Mulder stared at Sam, his brow creased, then decided to ignore the implications of his friend's comment. "I have got to get this report done. Do you have the crime scene photos and a copy of your autopsy report?" he asked, picking up his shoes off the floor, tossing them over against the wall. Moving again, quickly. 

"I have the crime scene photos. I'm a little behind on my autopsy report for this one." 

"Well, anything's better than nothing." Mulder wandered into the bathroom, back out into the hotel room. "I can ask you for pertinent data." 

"If you'll sit down and eat. Sit quietly and eat," Sam replied. 

"Oh fuck you," Mulder almost snarled. Pushing into his friend's room, grabbing a styrofoam box at random. He opened Sam's briefcase, began rifling through it. "Where are the damn photos?" 

Oh God. Sam really didn't need this. "Leave my shit alone," he ordered, striding across his room, grabbing Mulder's wrist, jerking his hands out of the suitcase. "Sit down for a minute and let me get something to calm you down." 

"Give me the fucking photos." Mulder stared at Sam, shook out of the hold. Behind him, Averman moved into position. Sam shook his head. 

"Francis. I'm going to give you five milligrams of Haldol. If it doesn't calm you down I have to give you more in two milligram dosages, and it may hurt. Do you understand? This isn't a punishment, this is just to get you calm." 

Mulder spun so that he could see both Averman and Frito. "Look. I'm fine. For the moment, I'm actually fine. I can think and there aren't any. . ." deep breath "aren't any flashbacks and I have to get this shit done. I'm really, really hyper. I'd go jogging but you'd follow me again in that damn Taurus and Averman would probably have a massive coronary trying to keep up. I've got to get rid of the energy somehow. Look, just give me the photos and I'll work on my report." 

"The report can wait. You just need to calm down." Averman stepped in, cool and logical. 

"What? I'm your psychological profiler. VICAP's finest." Mulder turned completely to face Averman. "If you think I should just be coddled and petted and given injections of psychopharmaceuticals then you fucking send me back home. Sir. Because I should be in a hospital drooling somewhere. This is a serial killer. Sir. I am your profiler. That's what I'm trained to do. Now either let me do my job or you relieve me of duty." 

Frito had the Haldol out, had the syringe. 

"No one said you can't do your job." 

"It fucking looks that way. I get up after Frito's pumped me full of drugs and try to do what I'm getting paid to do and the first thing you shiteaters want to do is drug me again." Mulder stared at his friend, at the needle and the vial of clear liquid. He glanced at Averman. "Fucking leave me alone, and let me do my job." 

The words were running together now, too fast, too hard. His mind must be racing at ninety miles an hour, unable to catch any of it, unable to stop and unable to catch hold of any moorings. His eyes were dilated and huge, his breath fast, in and out and he was still holding that damn box of food and the box was shaking and he was trying to decide what to do, Sam saw that. Wondering if Averman and Sam could take him, if they could hold him down and pressure that awful thing into him, that thing that would rob him of his passion and his cognition. Wondering if they were right, sure they weren't. Sure he knew everything and that everything was all right. 

But it wasn't. 

"Marion, calm down." Sam forced his voice to become level. "Look, we trust you to do your job, but right now you need to get some more rest. Your mind is racing, and your heart rate's up. You may think you're fine, but you're not. Look at your hands. Your hands are trembling." 

Mulder stared down at the styrofoam box of food he had gotten from the floor. And then the box was suddenly flying across the room, flying and hitting the wall, cracking open, falling to the carpet. Mulder's hands clenched and unclenched. 

"Mulder." Averman's voice was cold and stern. "Mulder, Rodriguez is trying to help you before you hurt yourself. If you keep up this behavior then I'm going to have to call 911." 

"Oh, fuck you." Mulder's voice had tears in the back. 

"Mulder, do you know your behavior is. . .frantic?" Sam asked. A friend's voice. 

Mulder stood, trembling, staring at the barbecue plate. He nodded slowly, wrapped his arms around his chest, to contain the hard, hard beating of his heart. "Please Sam. Please. Don't hold me down and drug me. Please let me write this. He's got another one. A boy. A little boy. Oh God, a little boy who's sweet and gentle, whose momma hurts him at night. . .Please let me write. If you let me do the profile I'll take your drugs. I'll go to psych services and tell them everything. It won't be a profile like the other one. This one you can use. I swear. Everything will be real. I promise. It'll look good to the brass. Please." Tears stood in his eyes. "I promise," he pleaded. 

Averman's voice was gentle. "Okay, Mulder. Okay." 

Mulder nodded. Sam got the data Mulder wanted. 

They sat and watched him, watched his movements, his hands trembling with fear and pain and his eyes huge, staring at the glowing screen, watching the cursor move. He referred to the documents almost never, typing from instinct. He kicked the chair out and hunched over the computer screen, feet dancing and moving, unable to keep still. 

Sam wondered what he was typing, what nonsense he was putting onto the screen. If someone like Guiterriez would be able to use it, to understand what was going on, how Mulder was coming apart. 

It seemed to take forever, sitting and watching and praying and wondering why there was no smell of incense. But it was only twenty minutes until Mulder stopped and was quiet. He ran it through the spellchecker. Went back and deleted a lot of material. Then finished. Nodded. 

"I don't want to." It was the plea of a child who knows he is defeated. 

Sam nodded. "But you will?" 

Mulder nodded, went to the bed, pulled down his shorts. Made no comment of the long, sharp stinging. Then was up, cleaning. He was frightened now, frightened of the way his thoughts coursed and moved and the way he couldn't control any of it and he hit his hand against the wall several times, hard enough that Averman started shadowing him more closely, in case he tried to harm himself in some more tangible way. It frightened Sam and he was glad Cooke was not here to be reminded of a father gone into the nightmare void. 

"Come on," Sam told him, when it became obvious that the first dose wasn't even making a dent on the frantic behavior. 

Mulder stared at him. "I can feel the drug. Please." 

"I know," Sam said sadly. "But you need more. That wasn't enough." 

Averman was there or Mulder would have refused longer. He let Sam inject him again. Sam knew he should be dead on his feet now, not moving, not aware. But he wasn't. He reorganized his suits on the rack, he sorted through his laundry, only to toss everything back into a corner with exasperation. He paced back and forth through their rooms. 

"Come on." Sam had the needle out, was filling it. 

"No," Mulder replied, sharply. "No more. I don't want any more. No." 

Averman was there. "Come on, son," he said gently. "Come on." 

"I don't want any more," Mulder replied angrily, teeth clenched. 

Averman swallowed and put an arm around Mulder's shoulders, drew him over to the bed. Held him down, by his shoulders. Mulder did not kick, did not move. Just turned his head away, stared at the radio-clock, seething. 

But the next dose was enough. Mulder calmed rapidly, slowing down until he finally fell onto the bed, curled around a pillow. Then everything kicked in. He was almost incoherent as Sam helped him under the covers, mouth flung open. 

"They said they wouldn't hurt her," Mulder whispered to no one as Sam turned off the light. "I remember that. They said they wouldn't hurt her. Daddy hit me so hard when I told him that." 

 

Sam got the floppy disk, printed things up on his word processor. Didn't even read it at first, staring at Averman, staring at the darkened room. "God. I put enough Haldol into his system to stop a 747. He very nearly lost it tonight, closer than we realized. We should have sent him home after the first nightmare," he said softly, "when he was still almost normal." 

Averman didn't say anything. Just took the printed pages from Sam's fingers. After a moment he looked up. "Read it," he ordered. Sam stared at the former marine. Averman put the papers into Sam's fingers. 

Once upon a time the world was green and perfect. We are all born into Eden. The great Gods, our parents, give us love and all the things we need in life. There were bright flowers in the spring time and crystalline snows in winter. Summer's heat was a palatable blanket wrapped around us as we dove into summer pools. 

Our killer was not born into Oklahoma. He sees himself in a wasteland. He was born into a coastal existence, somewhere much greener, most likely temperate or semi-tropical, some place with large forests and abundant water. 

Our killer sees Eliot as a prophet and places pieces of T.S. Eliot's poetry on or in his victims. This behavior is not bragging, identifying himself or trying to bring attention to himself. The choices are too well made and indicate a critical understanding of Eliot's poetry. Instead the killer is using these poems as a means of "preaching" what he is trying to tell his listeners: the media, the FBI, local law enforcement, ultimately the general public; some lesson or moral. 

The method in which the bodies have all been killed also indicates this. Christopher Raintree was given an overdose of Restoril. Kimberly Slater died of carbon monoxide poisoning, and Ericka Jones was drowned. The latest victim, a caucasian girl, approximately six years old, was shot at the base of the skull. These are not painful deaths. Our subject killed quickly, as painlessly as he could. He then prepared the body for our discovery, located it so that we would find it and draw our messages from the location and arrangement of the corpse as well as the poetry he placed at each of the bodies. 

He is trying to tell us all something. His message is relatively simple. Each of the children discovered had either physical evidence of sexual abuse or we have found some anecdotal evidence for sexual abuse. In the time before they are killed the subject treats his children well. Christopher Raintree was wearing a friendship bracelet the parents could not identify. Kimberly Slater was found with a full stomach and had probably eaten at a McDonalds recently. Ericka Jones' hair had been cut into a softly attractive bob when her mother, a devout member of the Assemblies of God church, never allowed her to cut her hair. The latest victim had new hair ribbons carefully arranged in her hair. There were no recent bruises on any child, although Kimberly Slater and the latest victim were both healing from possible physical abuse meted out by their parents. 

It is obvious he cares for the children, does not want them to suffer. It is also obvious he finds it necessary to kill them. Our killer evidences a great deal of faith, judging by his Eliot selections. He does not think killing these children is an evil thing. He is slaying the children and in doing so he sends these children on to Heaven and Jesus, where they cannot be hurt anymore. 

What happens to the empty shell is his business. And he chooses to use the shell as a teaching device. 

Christopher Raintree was found with his arms out in a classic Christ-Crucifixion pose. The obviousness of this pose is not worth discussion. Kimberly Slater was coiled fetal with a blanket wrapped around her, genitals removed. Again, the symbolic nature of this gesture is almost deafening. Ericka Jones was found gutted and stuffed. She was an invitation to us, the FBI, that we were welcome at his table, to learn his messages. In addition the reference to Christ's Last Supper is not to be missed. Christ offered his disciple his blood and flesh. As a sacrifice. Much as this child, or at least her shell, became. The latest victim was killed only after he knew he had our attention. She was laid at the end of a drainage canal, where the killer knew mud would come and cover her body. Her eyes, ears, and nipples were removed. This mutilation was quite deliberately random. He simply cut out some parts of her, parts easy to remove. What was important was that something was removed. She lay covered in mud, being eaten by small bugs. Here, he was reporting to his congregation, here is how you believe children should be treated. As products used and disposed of. 

Our subject is killing children who have been sexually abused, sending them on to heaven and warning us that we are destroying our children through such abuse. His anger at this abuse is probably derived from a childhood of enduring sexual trauma from an early age. He was the oldest sibling and there were several children in his family younger than he. He respects and reveres the Mary images found in Eliot's poetry; his mother died quite young, most likely through some long, drawn out process such as cancer. It was after the death of the mother that the sexual abuse began. It was also a short time after the death of the mother that the family was moved to Oklahoma. The father's pedophilic interests were discovered and the family was forced to move to Oklahoma. 

The subject's lack of distinction between Indian and White children leads me to believe that this move was undertaken because the father had Native American relations in Oklahoma. It was probably the first time our subject realized he was, in fact, partly Native American. 

I believe the father, although originally from Oklahoma, did not like this place. His belief in this land being a wasteland was probably transmuted to the son. This indicates that the father was a lover of Eliot and gave this passion to the son. Due to the choices of poetry and the subject's innate sense of Christian symbols as well as a certain flair for the delivery of his message, he cannot be anything other than a minister's child. 

There was no sexual abuse of the subject before the move to Oklahoma. Our killer remains sharply in state, only choosing Oklahoma children, only killing in state. Oklahoma and sexual abuse are too firmly linked in his mind for any other conclusion to be drawn. 

The father abused his son sexually throughout the time they were in Oklahoma, only abusing the son. For some reason he did not molest any of the younger siblings until the son was no longer a child, but becoming a man. Only at this time did the father move on to a younger sibling. The killer still evidences a great deal of guilt and rage at young children being sexually abused. 

The childhood sexual abuse of our killer no doubt influenced his sexual behavior as an adult. Our killer has definite homosexual leanings, although he feels some religious guilt over it and most likely has fetishes related to procedures practiced on children by adults, which, while sexual in nature, are approved by our society. Namely, spanking and enemas. These things were not practiced by the father, however, but were inflicted upon him by the relatives his father came to meet in Oklahoma, otherwise the subject would not have any positive feelings towards these fetishes. 

Once the father had moved on to the younger children one of these children killed him or herself in an effort to get out of the hellacious circumstances of the family. Our killer saw in this the germination of the idea of killing children and sending them where they could no longer be hurt. 

Our killer worked for several years out of state before coming here. I do not know the precipitating factor, but I would assume that at some point he was participating in some activity related to his fetishes and became irrationally angry, displacing his anger towards his father at his partner. 

He killed the partner and in his remorse, decided it was time he come home and put an end to the pain and misery suffered by children in the wastelands. 

Now that he knows he has a congregation watching him, learning from him, now that he has drawn our attention, our subject will begin killing more frequently. He does not kidnap by force, but chooses children who will come with him willingly, will die for him voluntarily. When he finds such children he will take them, and prepare them for their death by "saving them." In some way he makes sure they understand how special and wonderful he finds them and then he will kill them. It will happen as fast as he can go through these steps. 

He will continue moving, for although he sees us as his congregation, he knows that we will stop him when we catch him. He knows, from travelling with his father, the roads of this state very well. He will criss-cross the state, not waiting for us to catch up, trusting that God will lead us as fast as God wishes us to be led, but that God will not let us catch him as long as he practices his craft well. 

Sam swallowed. "My God. . .It's. . .so . . .logical." 

Averman nodded. "Nothing that cannot, once it has been pointed out, be logically deduced from the site and the evidence." He put his face in his hands. "I don't have a fucking clue what's going on in his head now. When I read that first document I just. . .I thought we were going to have to send him home with two babysitters and enough drugs to sedate half of Dallas. . .But this. . .I. . ." 

Sam nodded, stomach churning with unidentifiable fears and concerns. 

 

The ride was long, and bright in the summer heat. The sun caught them, even insulated as they were by metal and glass and air conditioning. Two hours to Ashton, just on the border of Texas. 

Frito lifted sunglasses and wiped the oily sweat from his face. The front seat was cool.. Cooke and Averman rode in comfort despite the light on their legs, but the back seat still sweltered. The bottled water and soda had gone flat and warm, but was better than nothing. 

Sweat darkened Francis' hair, and he stirred restlessly, slumped asleep in the corner of the seat. He hadn't said a word after they left, just twisted himself into the corner, favoring the hip where Frito had injected him the night before. His blank, shielded stare had said enough, and had haunted them until the wheels had lulled him to sleep. Sam said nothing about having to help him get dressed, having to lay out the clothes in order on the bed and help him tie the hideous tie. 

Cooke had sat rigid and watchful until he was certain Mulder was more than asleep. His voice since had been low, harsh, fearful. Averman and he had. . . planned. Discussed how to deflect the Cherokee cops if Marion fell apart in front of them. Sending him home was no longer an option. Even Cooke agreed. 'Between hiding a madman and losing one', was how Cooke had put it. 

Frito felt his lips purse with anger at the thought, then relaxed again, watching the landscape go by. Marion would sleep a long, long time from the looks of him, and Sam let himself drift off. 

The motor's frequency changed, and Sam opened his eyes to find hills, dry and rolling, instead of flat land. Pockets of green reminded him that summer could end, and rain could return. The world had not always been this sere, brown thing. He took off the glasses, rubbed at an ear made sore by the earpiece. Scrubbed the sleep from his eyes. Cooke was reading BusinessWeek and Averman drove as though it was what he'd been born to do, as though there were nothing else fit for man to do. And Francis' long frame still molded itself, in boneless discomfort, in the corner of the seat. 

"We there yet, dad?" Sam's voice was light, but the strain was there. He saw Cooke twitch when he leaned forward, looking past them at the road. 

Averman's grin showed at the back of his neck, a shifting of jaw and cheekbone. "Be a little while longer. You'll need to start waking the kid up soon." 

"Why?" Cooke sounded nervous. Having Mulder in the same car was bad enough, Mulder awake. . . Frito stiffened and opened his mouth, unsure what he intended to say, but knowing he had to say something. Averman beat him to it. 

"Relax, Cooke. We're going where he wants us to go." Averman's voice was dry and slightly patronizing. Cooke stiffened, but Frito grinned. "We. . . we pushed his buttons yesterday. We should have thought about what we were doing." 

Cooke's stare clearly announced that he was not going to be able to think for a madman. Averman's face tightened with fleeting anger. "He's not your father, Cooke. He's not wiping his own crap on the walls and screaming at nurses. I don't really understand what's going on, but he's still doing his job and you will treat him with that much respect." 

"But. . . " Averman's glare cut him off. 

"Not 'but.' You read that profile. The kid's under a lot of stress and it's showing, but so far he's gotten us closer to catching this bastard than you and all your press conferences and releases. He needs some help right now, but you will treat him with the respect due a fellow agent." Steady voice that didn't need to be raised to get attention. Sam sighed and sat back, watching Cooke accept that. 

And Ashton's buildings slowly came into sight, scattered at first, then clustered. Frito leaned over and shook Marion. It took a while, and his eyes were glazed when he did open them. Sam gave him a bottle of water, watched him drink it, listlessly at first, then desperately, trying to get the taste out of his mouth. It dribbled down his chin, spotted his tie, but his eyes were still glazed when he wiped his mouth dry with the back of his hand, looked around with less curiosity than resignation. 

"Ashton." It wasn't a question. Frito nodded. 

 

The hotel was polished and pleasant and could have been anywhere in the fifty states. Not a Holidome, but comfortable. Mulder leaned against the back of the elevator and let the others guide him, carry the bags, do the work. He just wanted to sleep, or write, or run. He was caught somewhere between all three and didn't know which way to turn. All he really knew was that somewhere here, a small boy was being fed and listened to, played with and cared for, and would very soon be dying. The certainty of that burned through the thick fog of drugs and anxiety, and he shivered. 

They were on two floors. Most of the team was on the second floor, but Averman and Rodriguez had rooms on the third floor, flanking Mulder's, with the inevitable connecting door. God, he was coming to hate the sight of that door in the wall. He wanted to go home, where his apartment was quiet and calm and no one hovered on the other side of any of the doors, with needles and threats. The only good point was that he'd outrun Guiterriez. All he had to contend with here was Averman and Frito. And the killer. 

Mulder settled on his bed, flipping through the book of tourist traps hotels left out, while they hid the Bibles. He could hear Frito through the open door, talking with Averman. Something about rest and food, but Mulder preferred to ignore Averman and Frito. Cooke had a room down the hall. The thought put a sour smile on his face. Cooke was so scared he broke a sweat when Mulder glanced at him. Irish mackerel snapper. Damned superstitious idiot. 

The pages felt hot in his fingers, and were hard to turn. He slammed his hand across several, shoving halfway through the book, and stared. Swallowed. Put the book down, open at the ad for a helicopter tour, and sat there. He didn't know he'd been holding his breath until his chest hurt, didn't know how long he stared until Frito was shaking his shoulder, eyes wide and frightened. 

"Francis. Francis! C'mon, look at me." Mulder looked up with startled eyes, lips open, trying to shape a word that reached out of the page and announced itself. A brilliant smile flashed over his face. 

"Look at it." He flipped the book around, the ad. Showed it to Frito and waited to see if he'd recognize what was there. The pathologist glanced at it, looked back at him with concern. Averman was in the doorway, watching. "Do you see it?" 

"We. . . we need to check with the locals. Check missing persons reports, pay our respects. . . " Sam was still trying to find the traditional path, solid procedural ground in this shifting landscape. Marion was staring at him, expecting him to see something, say something, and he felt his guts twist. 

"Frito, I'm beginning to think they knew what they were talking about when they said jacking off would make you blind. In your case, at least." Marion flipped the book back around, frustrated. "Averman, you choke the chicken too much, or do you see it?" 

Jack Averman felt the corner of his mouth quirk. The kid put on a good show, no matter what else you had to say about him. The AIC walked over and leaned past Rodriguez to see what Mulder had found. 

"The chapel, Averman. The chapel." Mulder's voice had dropped to a whisper, his long, thin fingers tracing a rock formation, aerial tourist trap, natural wonder. Wilderness Chapel was what the florid copy announced, and it was true. Beautiful, graceful stone structure up there in the hills. The glossy photo showed a remote road with a chopper's shadow on the hills. It was parched and lovely. 

'Here is no water but only rock. . .' Mulder's voice was calm. He knew where he was and what he was saying. Averman could see his eyes, glazed only by lingering Haldol, studying the picture. "The empty chapel, only the wind's home." He looked up at Averman. "I don't care who talks to the cops, or finds the kid's mother. His mother isn't the one who cares about him now. And this is where we'll find the first one." He tapped the picture, and there was no doubt in his voice. 

Frito met Averman's eyes. . . shivered. But the air conditioning wasn't that high. 

Continued in part 11............... 

=========================================================================== 

From: livengoo@tiac.net Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 11/41 NC-17 Date: 31 Jan 1996 05:11:20 GMT 

Oklahoma (Part 11/41) By Amperage and Livengoo Copyright October, 1995 

International Readers: No third season spoilers Rating: NC-17 for language and violence 

___________________ 

They had to pay their respects. The police station was a long, low, yellow brick building, with cars lined up along the curb out front. The grass was sere, stiff in the heat. The few trees were tamarisks, their rose and green fingers dusty in the sun. Little spots of color floated in front of Averman's eyes as he stood in Wilson Hardman's office, studying the stocky man, and the objects that surrounded him. 

Hardman's hand was solid, calloused across the palm in a pattern Averman knew from a childhood spent around livestock. The pictures of horses, children, competitions, that were centrally displayed spoke of his true love. The police captain smiled, showing silver fillings in two teeth. 

"We really appreciate the FBI's discretion and help in this. It's taken long enough to get this town on its feet, keep it stable. We don't need the kind of notoriety that. . . Well. We'd like to keep our kids safe on our streets. This is a small place and we value our people." 

Averman had heard political expediency in police departments before and considered this about an average example. Just as well. He was too busy to pay that much attention to Hardman. He could feel Mulder behind him, studying everything in this office, this place. Could hear Rodriguez moving, trying to keep subtle. Cooke, in the other visitor's chair, was better suited to coddling local authorities and petting bruised egos. Let the man earn his money for once. 

Averman tuned out Cooke, who was engaged in the pro forma patter that law enforcement agencies used when they were pretending to be happy to deal with each other. An interior window lined the wall to his left, where it let Hardman monitor his station. Now, it let Averman watch Mulder. The young man had come to rest in front of a map. The chair creaked as Averman got up to join him, watching the patterns Mulder traced. He knew Hardman was watching them, had been since he'd shaken Mulder's hand and seen the faint glaze in the profiler's eyes. Averman prayed to the god he'd been raised to believe that nothing would happen. 

Frito, on Mulder's other side, felt his neck aching from tension. He could see Marion's lips move just slightly, but heard no words. One long, slender finger traced a river bed, and the hand spread out, framing a factory district, old, short streets in a bend of river. Mulder glanced back at Hardman and Frito twitched to hear his voice. 

"This neighborhood, down by the docks. . . what was it?" 

"Old factory works. There's the mattress factory down there, and up a little further is a place that makes motors for lawnmowers." He beamed his pride in it. "Real coup for the city council, that. Employs twelve-hundred people." Mulder looked back at the map. 

"What about the mattress works?" 

"Maybe three-fifty, four hundred. Been there forever." Puzzled voice. Cooke caught the questioning glance but had no idea how to answer it. Mulder licked his lips, frowned at the map. He could feel Frito and Averman, tensed on either side of him but trying to look like everything was SOP, normal. But the ache in his head and the fuzzy, Haldol fog wasn't standard operating procedure. Mulder swallowed, felt his stomach twisting even though he'd eaten nothing. He knew Hardman was watching them, knew Cooke was frightened and knew there were words to be said. He spun a manic smile on Averman. 

"Excuse me, I think I'd like to see. . . the missing persons reports. And a map." God, yes. That would make them all happy. Mulder breathed a sigh of relief and followed Hardman, feeling Frito's eyes, Averman's, on his back as he let Hardman and Cooke lead them. Was able to hold his silence as they were shown into a small office and given a thin bundle of files. He looked at them in self-defense, but they told him nothing new. The map. . . 

Marion was spreading the map out across a table, smoothing it with little, jerky motions. His glasses, folded and hooked in his shirt pocket, swung in time with his tie, little oscillations as his quick breathing changed rhythm. Hardman and Cooke were outside, thank god, negotiating support and space arrangements. That much at least they'd weathered. Frito stepped up next to Marion. 

"Francis, are you all right?" The sheen of sweat might have been from the heat outside. So might the faint flush across his cheekbones. 

"Quit asking me that, Frito." Distracted. He had no time for this. Averman was back at his left elbow. Caught a flat, spooky stare. "He picked up the child yesterday. Half-past two." 

"What?" Averman leaned in. He wanted to not believe Spooky. He desperately wanted to sort, rationally and sanely, through those files and know their next victim's face was in there. And he'd already seen the files tossed on the desk and known a formality for what it was. 

"The secret of its skeleton, Stiff and white. A broken spring in a factory yard, Rust that clings to a form that the strength has left Hard and curled and ready to snap." 

"Mulder, stop this. Stop. We're in the fucking Ashton police station and the captain's standing out there with Cooke. Please, don't do this." Spooky stared back into his eyes, not aggressive now, desperate. Looking at him, really at him, for the first time that he remembered today. But his eyes flickered back and forth too fast, pale skin and flushed cheekbones that made Averman's alarms go off. Mulder swallowed convulsively. 

"He took the. . .the n-next one already, yesterday, at half-past two. From the quay. He gave him a toy. His mother sells his mouth at night and hurts him when he cries." Spooky's mouth tightened. He screwed his eyes shut and smoothed the map again. "She won't report him missing until the social worker sees them again because he's run away before but he always comes back. She doesn't even know yet. She hasn't come down. Her boyfriend will notice first, when he wants to screw the kid." Mulder had gone white as a sheet, and his throat was working. 

He spun on his heel, very straight and definite, went past Hardman and Cooke and all those desks and held it until he'd slammed through the door of the men's room in the hall, where dry heaves crumpled him up by the toilets. The tiles were hard under his knees, and he could feel the grooves between them, knew he'd have little, geometric bruises on his knees. God, he hated the feel of porcelain under his hands, the ache in his ribs and his gut as he heaved and heaved and only air and retching. And, finally, Frito's hand on his shoulder. Wet paper towels handed down so he could wipe his face, drop back on the floor, legs sprawled flat because he couldn't pull them up anymore without the muscles of his groin aching. 

"God, Frito. At least I didn't eat breakfast." His eyelids were too heavy to raise. The metal of the stall was cold through his hair, the shirt on his shoulders. He shivered as the sweat chilled. He heard the rustle of fabric, Frito moved to sit by the sinks, letting his shoes tap back against the cabinet below the counter. 

"You'll never market it as a diet plan, Francis." Mulder could feel every muscle he had to use for the smile. 

"Look for oral herpes when we find this one, Frito. The social worker missed it." 

Sam swallowed. Stared at Francis. Wondered if he could feel the stare through closed lids. "And how long will it take you to come up with the rationale for that, Francis?" 

"Not long. The oral imagery gives this one away, though how he found this one. . ." Sam hopped off the counter, saw Francis flinch at the sound. 

"Let me give you a hand up." Fair warning to let him expect the steps that walked up to him. "I bet Averman's jumpy as hell, but figures the whole team in here's bound to panic the natives." 

"Un-fucking-PC, Frito. Careful or they'll scalp you." 

"And use my balls for a tobacco pouch?" God, he was almost a dead-weight. His palm felt cold and damp. 

Not worth it for one smoke, spic. More likely as a golf-ball cover." 

"Beats your fuzzy dice." 

Marion let his weight open the door, using only the muscle needed to catch himself as it swung inward. "Keep your hands off. You can beat a lot of things, but not my fuzzy dice." Frito let it drop, let him have the last word. 

 

Averman was waiting, had got them off the hook somehow. Some excuse about the flu and decongestants. Frito wasn't really paying attention. They left Cooke to publicly relate to Hardman and his people, piled Marion into Averman's Taurus and pulled out to go back to the hotel. Or wanted to go back to the hotel. 

"Turn here." 

"Look son. . . " 

"We've done this before. Turn here." Averman glanced at Rodriguez, assessed the tense note in the voice over his shoulder. There'd be no point in a lunge for the wheel, but no real point in frustrating the kid, either. He turned. Followed a sickly, yellowish river that veered away to run under lonely loading docks where no barge had visited in too long. Shivered at the rusting, twisted shapes of cranes. Spooky pointed them down a sad, scarred residential street of pocked asphalt and peeling houses. 

"So the hand of the child, automatic, Slipped out and pocketed a toy that was running along the quay. I could see nothing behind that child's eye. I have seen eyes in the street Trying to peer through lighted shutters. . . " 

Spooky's voice was a thin, acid-scoured whisper from behind him, weaker and stronger as he scanned from side to side. The street was still and dead under the sun's punishment. Averman felt sick, deep in his gut, glanced at the rear view mirror to see a pale, thin face and eyes that couldn't settle on any one object. 

"A washed-out smallpox cracks her face, Her hand twists a paper rose, That smells of dust and eau de Cologne, She is alone With all the old nocturnal smells That cross and cross across her brain. The reminiscence comes Of sunless dry geraniums And dust in crevices, Smells of chestnuts in the streets, And female smells in shuttered rooms And cigarettes in corridors And cocktail smells in bars." 

His voice had grown thinner than ever, but now he was focused. Averman heard him slide across the back seat, up behind Rodriguez' seat, suddenly craning to see past Sam's shoulder. But the steady, hypnotic whisper still rattled over his lips. 

"The lamp said, 'Four o'clock, Here is the number on the door." 

"Stop here, Averman." Barely stronger. "Put your shoes at the door, sleep, prepare for life. 

The last twist of the knife. 

And he was out the door and pacing up a cracked sidewalk to the sagging porch. Rodriguez was out after him, at a half-run to come apace. Averman hesitated only long enough to lock the doors, then turned and followed the younger men up to where the rust on the dark, dusty-clogged screens could be smelled. Up to the peeling paint and cracked wood of a screen door. And Mulder's knuckles sounded loud in the silence of a seared afternoon. 

There was no answer from his knocking. No answer but the humming buzz of a fan. Mulder knocked hard, again. 

"She doan' hear nothin'," a voice informed them. The speaker was a short, wide woman, dark eyes and skin, grey hair. A faded print dress and athletic socks with house shoes. "She been snortin' her brains away." The woman leaned against the bannister dividing the two halves of the porch. 

Mulder glanced at the other Agents. "Ma'am, I'm with the FBI," he said, drawing on all his cordial, shining, agent gloss. He took out his credentials. The woman took the leather wallet into both hands. 

"Fox? You're not a Fox. Who named you Fox?" the woman demanded, handing it back. 

"My father." 

The snort told them all what she thought of this. "What do people call you?" 

"Mulder." 

"No, they don't. What do people call you Mr. FBI?" 

"They call me, Spooky," Mulder replied. "Spooky Mulder." 

The woman nodded. "You're not a Fox. I don't know what you are. An owl maybe. But not a Fox." 

"Does the woman who lives in this house. . .does she have a little boy?" Mulder asked softly. 

The old woman stared at him. "She got a little boy. And the Social Worker tried to take it away, but the Judge he give it back. She got a little boy. She sell him." 

"Did anyone come by and get the little boy?" Mulder asked softly. 

The woman slip-slapped her way over to a dilapidated couch, lowered herself into it. "Why I tell you that?" 

"Because, the man who has him will kill him." 

"And what so wrong with that? He not got the strength to grow up like you, Spooky Fox." She seated herself. "He grow up, he gonna kill and hurt and be like his momma's boyfriend. If he grow up." She snorted. "Why not just let him die? Heaven is chock full of little kids." 

Mulder swallowed convulsively. "Did you see anyone come by and pick up the little boy?" 

The woman sighed, looked out across the road at the river. 

"What's his name?" Mulder asked softly. "Can you tell me what his name is?" 

"I seen a man come by. He give Michael a stuffed animal. A panda bear. Michael's toys always been from the garbage heap before. This man, he only be takin' the ones nobody gonna' love anyhows. When I was little my brother died because my daddy didn't stop beating him. Priest said he was in heaven. Little children don't have to go to purgatory. He's not taking the ones we care about. You had a daddy loved you. Might have hurt you and kept on hurting you. But he love you. You love him too, don't you?" She fixed Mulder with a stare that had nothing to do with the hot Oklahoma sun or the dry winds or the smell coming off the river. 

"I love my father, yes ma'am." Mulder replied softly. 

"He love you back too." The old woman sighed. "I doan' see what this man's doin' is so much worse than what your people do. At least he doan make them suffer. He send 'em to Jesus." 

Mulder did not have words for her. Just stood, silently, looking across porch at the old woman. "Any kind of life is better than no life," he said finally, softly. 

Sam broke out of the trance. His voice echoed with lessons taught and learned from nuns with dark swinging veils. "We are not supposed to take life, no matter what the reason," he said, hearing not his own words, but the words of the priest. 

"You been to too many CCD classes," the old woman cackled. "Next you'll tell me abortion is a sin and contraceptives are an instrument of the devil." 

"I believe that," Sam said, said it simply and softly, truly, as he had been taught. 

"I don't believe in abortion," Averman whispered. "I. . .I know sometimes it has to be. But I don't believe in stopping a life because you didn't feel like using birth control." 

The old woman sighed. "I didn't see nothing else. If you knock really hard that lazy whore will wake up." 

Averman knocked, called. Mulder continued to stare at the woman. "Who are you?" Mulder asked softly. 

The old woman stared at Mulder, got up, waddled back into her house. 

 

 

She was small, and the wrapper tied around her was stubbly polyester. Something about her had once been pretty. But that beauty was gone as surely as if it had never been. It must haunt her at night, when she stared in the mirror, watching the thin white lines disappear into her body. To remember what she had once been, to know what she was now. Her eyes darted, like a snake's, when she saw them. Three men in expensive suits and short haircuts. Mirror shades and guns under their armpits. 

"You have a son?" Mulder asked softly. It was not standard FBI, but no one stopped him. 

"Yeah," she admitted, lifting her chin. 

"I heard he was a sweet child." 

The woman assessed them all, glanced at the car. If the words government agency had struck her consciousness she was not admitting it now. "You want a blow?" 

Mulder said nothing, his stare blocked by the mirror shades. 

"Sixty and I'll give him to you for an afternoon. Nothing that would hurt him, no blood." 

"What's his name?" Mulder hissed, staring through the tiny mesh of the sagging porch screen. 

"Michael. Call him anything you like." 

"Do you spank him?" 

"I said just nothing that leaves blood." She pulled a cigarette from some hidden pocket, got a fluorescent pink Bic lighter. The flare was soft and honey yellow. 

"What if he gets hurt?" Mulder asked. 

"Ninety." 

"What if he dies?" 

"Give me three hunnert." 

Mulder closed his eyes. "What is your name?" 

"What's it to you?" 

"Go find your little boy," Mulder replied. "Go fucking find your little boy and tell him that the FBI is arresting his mother." 

Mulder smiled and pulled out his badge. 

 

Sally. She was Sally and the kid was gone. Fuck, she didn't want to hurt him. She loved the kid. Ask the Judge, Judge Murdock. The fucking Social Workers had taken him last year. It was fucking entrapment, that's what it fucking was. She'd go back to the reservation where her Pap was, they didn't do any fucking things like this out there. How did she know they hadn't stolen him, killed him just to get at her? Fucking government officials. Fucking shitassed FBI. Lied to her, said they'd come to fuck Michael, they were rich suits. What the hell was she supposed to do? Scared they'd kill her. So she said she'd sell him. She didn't mean any of it. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. 

The kid was gone. 

"Madame Sosostis, the famous clairvoyant, Had a bad cold, nevertheless Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe, With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she, Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor, (Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!) Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks, The lady of situations. Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel, And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card, Which is blank, is something he carries on his back, Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find The Hanged Man. Fear death by water." Sally was still bitching to the local police when they put her in the car. Mulder knocked again on the woman's door. 

"Ain't nobody lives there, babyfucker," Sally screamed to him, as two policewomen attempted to put her into the back of a police car. 

"Ain't nobody. You seen old Essie's ghost. You fucked." For some reason, Sally found this hysterically funny. "You fucking seen Essie's Ghost!" She laughed. "They gonna' fucking put you away!" The latch was worn. Mulder pulled the screen door open. Turned around and walked away. "She was Loki," he told Frito, walking away, going to the car, ignoring the sheriff's deputies and the other agents. Sam opened the screen door and looked in. Swallowed convulsively, then followed Mulder to the car. 

Francis was just sitting there, staring into space, eyes quiet. Frito felt eyes boring into him. Twirled. "What. . .where's the old woman?" Averman asked softly. 

"Look in the house for yourself," Sam replied in a hoarse whisper. "No one's lived there for years." 

Mulder did not say anything. 

Sam watched Averman's mouth move compulsively, watched the man's adam's apple bob. "We got an ID on a kid that's still alive. That's got to be something," Averman muttered. "You want to take him back to the hotel?" 

"I thought you boys were pissing into my wellwater, but damn, you're hot shit, know that?" The voice was booming. Sheriff Hardman clapped a hand on Averman's shoulder, peered into the Taurus. Mulder stared back unflinchingly. "You look like hell, son." 

Mulder managed a smile. "I feel like utter and total shit warmed over for the second day and served with Spam. Good to know I feel better than I look." 

The sheriff liked this response. "I thought maybe you were. . .you know. . .that shell-shock thing. Put you away in the wetbrain wards." 

"Not yet," Mulder replied, grinned, a fucking ghoul's grin, a shitwhite bleached bones smile. "Right now I'm just trying to keep from puking my guts out over Oklahoma and Frito's drugging the hell out of me so I can finish the case." 

"Speaking of which." Frito considered Averman. "There's nothing Francis and I can accomplish here." 

Averman sighed, tossed Sam his car keys. "I've suspected Rodriguez of giving Mulder something to make him sick just to get out of the boring shit," he complained mildly to the Sheriff. "Tell me a good place for a really late lunch." 

The sheriff considered. "Bar-B-Que Junction. Right down from your hotel." 

"Okay. If Mulder feels up to it, meet us there at two. If he doesn't, I'll bring you a plate." 

"I want coleslaw. None of those fucking baked beans," Rodriguez replied. 

"You don't think Mulder will feel like eating a little pork with the rest of us heathens?" 

Mulder rubbed his arms convulsively, closed his eyes. Shivered with a cold alien to the incessant Oklahoma heat. 

Averman saw it, let the jibe put on for Hardman's benefit fall unfinished. Turned his head to stare at Sam. "Get him out of here," he muttered softly. "Keep him down, I don't care what you have to do." 

Sam nodded. 

He was quiet, sitting under the freon vents. "She was a Loki," he told Sam. "Do you know what they are?" 

"What who are?" 

"The old woman." 

"She was just some crazy old . . ." 

"The Loki are mischievous spirits. Not good, not evil, just mischievous. They want to have fun with us. Sally knew what she was." Mulder's voice was cold. 

"She was just some old biddy," Sam dismissed. The old woman froze his balls too, but he wasn't about to admit it with only him and Francis sitting under the air conditioning. 

"How do you explain what she knew?" 

"Well, fuck, maybe you're not the only fucking psychic in the world, ever fucking think of that you cocksucker?" Three fucks and a cock in one sentence. The nuns will be sooo proud. 

"Can't be that many psychics. Nobody's running screaming into the night because they got a glimpse into your head. Question is, why did she appear to us then? We must be getting close." 

"I thought you said these were mischievous spirits?" 

"They are. They like to keep things confused, stirred up." 

"You don't honestly believe that woman was. . .a Loki?" 

Mulder glanced at his friend. "If answering yes means more Haldol, then no." 

"That's what I was fucking afraid of," Sam muttered sourly. He glanced at Fox Mulder, Joe Cool in his white shirt and aviator shades. Joe Fucking Cool indeed. "What are you going to do in the hotel room?" 

"I don't know." Mulder shrugged. "Watch the Ashton Choctaws beat up on the Lubbock Crickets." 

Sam opened his mouth, shut it. "That one was entirely too obvious. Okay. I take it this is a baseball game?" 

"Give me a break. Catching up on minor league baseball is the only good part about this fucking case," Mulder complained mildly. "That and thinking about giving you a real blow." 

"You wish." 

"I know you dream about it. It's all you fantasize about when you're giving Jenni phone sex," Mulder replied. "Can we go out to the Chapel?" 

"No, and if you touch the steering wheel I swear you'll be hard pressed to know which end you feed and which end you wipe until we get the fuck out of this case and I deliver you to the closest psych ward," Sam replied, pissed. 

Mulder stared at his friend, put his hands up. "Sorry Frito. I just got carried away. I'm sorry. I know you love Jenni. I'm sorry I cheapened it. Sorry man." 

"How did you know Jenni and I. . ." 

"You wouldn't be happily married if you didn't. Besides. There's never any splatters of your cum on my skin magazines. . ." Mulder lied. 

Sam glanced at Mulder. Knew he was lying. Knew he was trying to make it up. "It's okay man. I'm just. . .this fucking heat, you know?" 

Mulder grinned manically. "Yeah. I know." 

Mulder grabbed a blanket from over the clothes rack to drape over himself. Sam started to ask why he didn't just get under the covers or turn down the air. Then didn't. If Mulder got under the covers he was admitting he wasn't well. If he turned down the air he couldn't cover himself up. And then he wouldn't have some kind of material barrier between himself and the world. 

While Sam was congratulating himself for figuring this one out, Mulder was huddling mummy style under the blanket, one hand peeking out to flip channels on the remote until he found the Lubbock Crickets playing the Ashton Choctaws. 

Continued in part 12.......... 

=========================================================================== 

From: livengoo@tiac.net Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 12/41 NC-17 Date: 1 Feb 1996 04:16:20 GMT 

Oklahoma (Part 12/41) By Amperage and Livengoo Copyright October, 1995 

International Readers: No third season spoilers Rating: NC-17 for language and violence 

Fox Mulder and the X-Files are the creation and intellectual property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting. The FBI is the property of the US Government. Oklahoma and Louisiana and Texas belong to exactly who you think they'd belong to, and everything else belongs to Amperage and Livengoo. 

_______________ 

One in the afternoon, and Jenni didn't answer. Frito sighed and put the phone in the cradle so gently it didn't make a sound. He wasn't surprised. She couldn't sit there waiting for him to call. . . but he still wanted to hear her voice. He wandered back into the other room. 

Francis was twisted into the blanket now, lying long and on his belly, eyes gleaming in the light of the television. The remote was clutched in the hand under his chin. The Crickets were hurting. 

Frito flipped open Francis' suitcase and rifled through the back pocket, found glossy paper among balled up socks and deodorant and a paperback copy of Freud that he knew Francis read for comic relief. 

"You could have asked, rude, inbred, oily little dust-fucker." The voice was mild, and he could hear a smile. 

"Careful Francis, you don't know what I'll ask for." Hmm. That one. He knew the centerfold looked like his first lay. 

"Doesn't matter. Everything you're thinking of is a sin." The sound dropped. "No answer on the phone?" 

He didn't want to talk about it, or think about why he'd wanted to hear Jenni's voice. "Just watch the boys play with their big sticks, man. I know why you like this stuff so much. . . ' 

"Hey, if you'd let me out the door, we could both go find the third dimension. . . " Sure. If he thought Marion would look for any kind of girl who still had flesh on her bones he would let the bastard out the door. Glad to. 

"After you asked about spanking bars? No way in hell. They'd kick me out of the Bureau just for knowing you." 

"You are *never* gonna know me, Frito. And if you did, your dick could never hold its head up again." 

Sam snorted. "Your skinny ass couldn't hold it." Looked up, grinned to see Marion out from under his barricade, sitting up to finally pull off his tie and drop it on the shoes tumbled on the floor. 

"Something that skinny? Slide right up your ass. Real needle-di. . . " and his face froze, just an instant, just a hesitation. But Frito swallowed, felt his guts chill and twist. 

"Marion. . . " What did he say? He was sorry? When he'd likely have to just drug him again? 

Francis had focused on the television. "Just pull the pages apart when you're done." 

 

 

Mulder sat crosslegged and studied his credit card. Some kind of calf-roping was blaring away from the set, and he couldn't hear springs squeaking anymore. He slowly, carefully, ran a finger along the edge of the card, around the smooth, rounded corners. How long would it be until Averman brought the food? The very idea of it made his stomach twist. His ribs ached from the strain of all the times he'd heaved, and he was feeling light-headed. He couldn't recall the last real meal he'd kept down. 

And the card was glossy and tempting. The card and the rental booth in the lobby. Mulder swallowed and ran through all the repercussions. They'd find him. They'd drug him. Hell, they were going to drug him anyway, and they weren't going to take him out there. They were too scared of what they'd find. And it made so much sense. They just didn't see it. . . 

It would be gambling, turning up one of his few remaining cards. Show it now and lose it. He let himself fall back into the pillows, across the blanket, and debated. He was so sick of being under guard, under eyes. He wanted to be by himself so much. God, he couldn't do this for that reason. . . but he knew he was right. The bones were out there. What had it been? Oh yeah. . . if he was going to do this he'd leave them the tip and let them climb the walls. The grin almost hurt his cheeks, but it was so hard to resist. 

So why bother? They were just going to drug him anyway. It was one-forty-five. Averman figured he'd get to the Bar-B-Que at two or so, and Averman was punctual. Wasn't expecting Frito or him to really meet them there, either. Not if he'd told Frito to keep him down. Mulder rolled onto his side and wrapped his arm back under his head. They were only going to do what they absolutely had to because he scared them. Stupid. Stupid. 

And suddenly it was like he couldn't breathe, he could feel all of it pressing in too close. Frito had Valium and Haldol and. . . Mulder bit his lip on the pain of that knowledge. Forced the air back into his chest. And Michael was sitting in a car, playing with a new toy, or eating food that didn't have maggots in it for once. And they weren't in Ashton anymore, but they were close. His head ached and his ribs ached and the taste of acid was sour in the back of his throat, but Mulder knew where he was, and knew what was happening. He knew all that, knew that Frito and Averman and Cooke would not be driving up into the hills, to look at some fucking tourist trap. 

And his fingers knew the shape of that card. He rolled very slowly and carefully off the bed, and grabbed his jeans and sneakers. Skinned out of the suit pants fast. He wanted something you could climb in, wanted to be something other than Fox Mulder of the FBI. He shoved his ID and his wallet into his pocket, and left the laces undone on his sneakers. Almost left right then. It was inviting trouble not to, but he couldn't do that. Couldn't just walk out. He pulled the little pad next to the phone over, silent, and uncapped a ball-point, grinned and knew which few lines he wanted to leave. See if they could work it out. This one would be easy enough. 

'Under a juniper-tree the bones sang, scattered and shining We are glad to be scattered, we did little good to each other, Under a tree in the cool of the day, with the blessing of sand, Forgetting themselves and each other, united In the quiet of the desert. This is the land which ye Shall divide by lot. And neither division nor unity matters. This is the land. We have our inheritance' 

Damn, that one was sooo obvious. Mulder hesitated and gave in, scribbled "pop quiz - 5 pts." across the top of it and set it on his bed. Hell, he didn't need a trance or a clue for that one. That one was fifteen-foot tall neon letters, good as a road map. He picked up his shades and stepped so silently to the door. Hand flat on the frame to keep it slow, deliberate and quiet. Please, Averman, be in the middle of that first round of rolls with butter you like so fucking much. Ice tea and lemon, and the door made no sound at all. He could feel his chest moving fast with noiseless little pants and the flush in his face, and he felt so free and so scared. Out the door and pull it shut as carefully as he'd opened it. Forced himself not to run to the stair well and handled the door like spun glass. 

 

The stairwell was cool and dim in the light of the low-watt bulb. Mulder's sneakers echoed softly as he half-ran three floors down, breathing fast, fast, flushed and feeling the blood in every vein of his body, the smile on his face. Stop at the bottom, hand on the knob, catch his breath and hope, and finally step through, eyes scanning to find the others before they could find him. They weren't there, and his face hurt with the smile. 

The girl at the Avis counter smiled back, curious and flirting, and her fingers touched his when he took his card back. They could trace the charge, and it didn't matter at all. He thanked her and she said she hoped she'd see him again. Handed him keys, cool from the air-conditioning in the lobby, the shape of freedom if only for a handful of hours. Mulder felt like running, like laughing, and opened the doors and turned the key in the ignition, and pulled back, frantic to get away from this hotel as fast as he could. Back up and pull out and head away. The direction didn't matter, he was free. He couldn't get enough air, was panting, it felt so good. . . 

The blacktop whined under the wheels and heat devils flickered over the road bed. Get Elvis on the radio, fine if it's Elvis Costello, it didn't matter, it was someone who wouldn't watch him or flinch or shoot drugs into his ass when he tried to figure out what was happening. Drive until a parking lot was there. 

Mulder pulled in to the strip mall and headed for the big, discount drug-store. He browsed in the magazine aisle, until he found a map with the right tourist sites and a book of them, and of local history. Sugar coated, but that didn't matter. Grabbed a bag of chips and a couple bottles of iced tea with sugar and lemon. 

Three candy bars that looked good. Ran them all on the card, fast and easy. No meat, beyond that he didn't care. 

Grabbed the bag and back out to the car. The map was one of those huge, folded nightmares that spread across the front seat and the dash as he searched through the right-angled valleys until he knew where he was going, and wadded it up, too impatient to even try to fold it back up. Popped open one of the drinks and pulled out and got on the highway, driving the prevailing speed and revelling in seventy-five miles an hour alone, in the car. When he saw his own eyes in the mirror they glittered. 

And the radio reeled through song after song after song, and Mulder almost sobbed. Bittersweet joy of watching the light on the damned hills around him. He could feel this slipping away already, knew that it couldn't last. He'd get to the chapel, he'd find what he'd need to find, learn what he needed to know. But he couldn't stay free, they wouldn't let him. His breathing slowed, but his chest hurt with it all the same. 

Long before he drove lonely into the hills, his ass ached from the seat, and driving, and the shots that pushed drugs into his blood and fog into his mind. Bruises over his hips, and he had no doubt there'd be a fresh bruise as soon as they caught up with him. 

And he'd have to let them, couldn't be helped. If he didn't let them catch him he'd never be Fox again. Worse, if they didn't catch him, Michael had no hope at all. The aching certainty of that warred with the pain of letting them trap him again. 

FBI procedure would frown on this. The sudden thought put a bitter smile on his lips. Hell, he'd been shot down from the moment they stopped trusting him to stay alone in his own room. Fucking guards. And he'd just made a jail-break. God, god, god, a flicker of black and white behind him. Shift the mirror to see. Yes, black and white on wheels. Fuck! Son of a bitch! The cocksuckers called the fucking cops. . . 

Outrunning it in this squirrel-mobile was never an issue. It pulled up and the red-and-blue flicker behind him sparkled in the mirror, off the chrome details, through his mind. It had been so short, he'd never set foot up there. . . not yet. The siren blared for an instant, blared again. Forget it. The road was narrow up here, they couldn't pull around. Mulder shot the single finger salute to the cop at the wheel, kept his speed steady and kept going. 

Not trying to run, not trying to dodge, but no way in hell he'd pull over so close to what he wanted. So he'd have witnesses, just as well. Proof. God, the mother-fucker was right up on his bumper, lights flashing, siren going. Nice car, shame about your dick. . . 

Brushed up close and fell back, still noisy back there. Mulder snarled. 

"I see you, asshole. I know you're there. Go blow your partner and get back to me." 

Oh god, fucker was trying to pull around. . . they'd get ahead and choke him down. Mulder pulled the wheel and veered just far enough to block the asshole. The big black-and-white brushed up close, frustration in the driving. Mulder was too busy to look back, but was sure he'd see some donut-addict with red-veined cheeks back there trying to teach him new words for fudge-packing. 

Don't tap the brakes. Don't give him the bird again, or that black and white would be right up his tailpipe and giving a practical demonstration of why the sheep got nervous. Mulder swallowed and carefully maintained speed. Didn't dare speed up or slow down. Maintain. That was all he could do, maintain. Swung briefly to threaten the bastard back into the lane behind him and played pied piper with too few horses under the hood. His hands were sweating on the wheel and the bluish shadow of the low hills broke up the gold light searing the road. A pick-up flew by the other way, vague awareness of staring faces. Thank god, thank god. That might keep the bastard back there a little longer, keep him from playing games. 

Turn-off signs ahead, and Mulder felt the warm rush of relief. He'd almost welcome the end of this, captivity or no. Yes, that was the turn-off. Signal. Come on, asshole, see the turn signal. . . slow down. . . the prick went for the tight squeeze, right on Mulder's ass. Didn't dare to touch the brakes, let the velocity bleed off until the fucker dropped back enough to let him brake and turn, deliberately, carefully, no surprises. The signal clicked off as he straightened out on the narrow, asphalt lane. Keep precisely to the speed limit and the asshole was still bright and noisy back there. What? He thought Mulder hadn't noticed? 

Oh god, let's flirt with this prick. Mulder swallowed. He could smell his own sweat, sharp with fear like any sane person's would be. Tourist signs, nobody up here in the heat of the late afternoon. He dropped a bit more speed, shivered. And there was a parking lot. Pull in and gun it across the gravel. Out of the car, forget closing the doors, get the ID out of his back pocket and it's open and never turn around, don't give them a chance, keep walking, don't, for god's sake, don't run unless a bullet sounds fun. He heard heavy, running steps behind him, two sets. . . 

"Freeze, asshole!" And now it was time to stop. He'd gotten this far. They'd shoot him from sheer frustration if he kept going now. One set of steps coming up fast. 

"I'm FBI." Level and calm, now was not the time for honesty. 

"Shut up, asshole. . . " and a big hand wrenched him around to see cheeks flapping with indignation and Mulder had to fight not to laugh. . . he looked so much like Mulder'd expected. Hoped he was wrong, but the fold of fat over his collar and the sweat stains and the grease mark on his chest. . . He clamped down on the inside of his cheek to keep the laugh in. Kept his hands up and the ID folder open between two fingers. 

Steps behind him and someone patted him down. 

"I'm FBI." Keep it calm and repeat it and hope it got through. The cop behind him grabbed the folder while his partner, standing there in front of him, gibbered at the effrontery of some city boy who wouldn't pull over when he was told. Mulder was glad, now, that he wasn't carrying his sidearm. That would be the last straw for this danger to livestock. 

"Looks real. And they didn't say to arrest him. . . " The voice behind him was much calmer. 

Mulder took a deep breath. "Look, all I want to do is go up there and look around. . . What did they say on the APB?" Safe assumption. 

The guy behind him stepped around, edging between his partner and the fed. Mulder let himself relax. His likelihood of being cuffed had just dropped considerably as far as he could tell. "They said you might be. . .well. . . " 

"In some danger?" Mulder raised an eyebrow and tried to imagine how Averman could have phrased it to convey danger without any details. Not 'danger to himself.' That would cost him a resource real fast. Maybe, just maybe, in danger from others. . . "They mention a possible problem with the Kid Killer?" Bingo. The younger one nodded. His buddy was letting his veins burst about ten feet away, stomping harmless plants to death. "We're on that case. . . I can understand the concern." 

"Would you mind coming with us? Or we can follow you back?" 

Mulder hesitated, considered how to get what he wanted. "I came up here on a lead. Look, I can see why they were concerned. I don't care if you come with me. I'd rather, in fact. . ." Started walking, calm and steady again. The younger one stayed next to him, the duck-fucker about ten feet back. Mulder grinned, but figured he wasn't in any danger from the bastard as long as he didn't sound like a farm animal. 

It wasn't a long walk to the chapel from here. He felt a vague sorrow for the loss of freedom, of the brief space of being alone. But it wasn't important here. He stopped and closed his eyes. The asshole blithered, but Mulder could tune him out. The man next to him didn't understand. He stood there and listened, and slowly paced into the small cup of the valley, hearing the trees around him. 

He smelled it before he saw it. Tangy and clean, fresh. "Juniper. . . " 

The dirt under the tree was hard. Thin grass marred it. Old and packed and hard. And bare in one patch. Mulder crouched down and cursed, wished for a shovel or something. . . Polished shoes stopped next to him and his neck cracked when he looked up. 

"Do you have a pocket knife or something. . . ?" The guy looked at him oddly, but pulled out a red pocket knife that probably had tools for disarming nuclear bombs on it. Mulder found a single, tough, thick blade and started scraping. The soil here had been hard for a long time, and he didn't need to go very deep. He could hear the older cop insulting him. The younger one had crouched and was watching him with very worried eyes now. And the blade scraped on something. He dropped the knife and brushed with his hands until he could see a flash of ivory in the twilight violet glow. Licked his lips. 

"I want a team out here." 

"Agent Mulder. . . why don't you tell me what this is about?" Fox Mulder looked up at him with the sad eyes of a man who wished he was wrong. 

"Dig here." He patted the spot where he'd scraped a few inches away. "This is where the killer buried his first one, or. . .or. . .the one before that." Used the knife to scar the tree and marked the spot. Any evidence left was hidden in the hard flesh of the land. Then turned and walked away, to sit slumped in the car and wait for the cops, and the fuss, and the cage to slam shut around him. 

Will the veiled sister pray for Those who walk in darkness and chose thee and oppose thee Those who are torn on the horn between season and season, time and time, between. Hour and hour, word and word, power and power, those who wait In darkness? Will the veiled sister pray For children at the gate Who will not go away and cannot pray; Pray for those who chose and oppose 

O my people, what have I done unto thee. 

Will the veiled sister between the slender Yew trees pray for those who offend her And are terrified and cannot surrender And affirm before the world and deny between the rocks In the last desert between the last blue rocks The desert in the garden the garden in the desert Of drouth, spitting from the mouth of the withered apple-seed. 

O my people. 

Continued in part 13................ 

=========================================================================== 

From: livengoo@tiac.net Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 13/41 NC-17 Date: 2 Feb 1996 01:29:46 GMT 

Oklahoma (Part 13/41) By Amperage and Livengoo Copyright October, 1995 

International Readers: No third season spoilers Rating: NC-17 for language and violence 

Fox Mulder and the X-Files are the creation and intellectual property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting. The FBI is the property of the US Government. Oklahoma and Louisiana and Texas belong to exactly who you think they'd belong to, and everything else belongs to Amperage and Livengoo. 

_______________ 

It didn't take long. Muttpumping mutherfucker must have called the moment he had Mulder's tight ass in his line of sight. Frito in the Taurus, and Averman with the other agents. 

"Are you going to do this hard or easy?" Sam's voice was hard and low. 

"What's hard?" Mulder asked speculatively, not rising from his seat behind the steering wheel. 

"Hard is I drug the shit out of you and let a psych hospital find out how hard it is to keep you in a room." It didn't even sound like Sam. "How the fuck could you do that? Didn't you know we would go fucking crazy? Left a fucking piece of fucking fucking T.S. Eliot on the pillow, you asshole." Sam's brow furrowed with his anger. "You shiteater, you faggot, you fudge factory with legs. I don't believe you did this. Fuck." 

Mulder closed his eyes, for the first time imagining Sam coming back through the connecting door, finding Mulder gone, not in the room at all. Terrified, not knowing anything. Not finding Mulder. "I'm sorry," he muttered. "I'm sorry man." 

"You fucking better well be. Why the hell did you run off? Just want to see if Frito's heart passes a fucking stress test? Damn it Mulder, I have been trying to see you through this. I have been trying to be patient. I have been trying to keep you out of a funny farm." 

Something snapped in Mulder then. His face contorted with rage. Oh fuck the Sheriff's deputies and fuck poor Sam's feelings and fuck the entire FBI. "What the hell are you talking about? What the hell? All the goddamn progress of this case, every fucking thing you've got you got because of me. Because of Spooky Mulder mumbling in the dark, listening to shadows and talking to the spirits. Because of what I see and what I know and damn you all to hell, because I knew that she was out there. I knew it! He held her and he held her and she fucking died anyway and he buried her here. She liked it here. It was her favorite spot, especially in winter when there was a thin patch of snow and no one else would come!" Mulder stood, entire hand stretched out towards the chapel. 

"She loved the beauty and the barrenness and when she died all he could do was hold her. He sent her on to Jesus. Because he loved her and it was all he could fucking do for her and here you are and you fucking refuse to go look. You just give me drugs and tell me to take naps and get scared of me when I tell you the truth." 

Mulder paused, looked around. Samuel and Cooke and Meyers. Averman and Williams and Hitchens and the local ewe rammers were gone, down to the site, down to where an innocent girl lay buried in the burning earth. 

His voice crackled with rage. "You only go so far before you turn away, scared of what you cannot see. 

"I will show you fear in a handful of dust." Mulder's voice was soft. He closed his eyes, let his shoulders fall forward. Over. All over. And he was going to go back to that hotel, that damn fucking hotel and Meyers was going to hold his shoulders while the needle sang and burned and left him pulled away in that other world where he could not think, could not see. He wanted to run, he wanted to leave, to go somewhere where no one knew Spooky Fox Mulder, knew he was the up and coming hot shot. Where no one knew he was coming off his rocker. Where he was simply no one. 

*When you open the door, is it still your sister you see?* 

Mulder opened his eyes at Sam's touch. "Get away from me you brown little turd. Get away from me." He pushed his body against the sun hot fiberglass of car. But Sam was not there. It was not Frito's gentle touch. Mulder shuddered. Sam was going through his briefcase. Mulder sank to a squat beside the car. There had been freedom for a moment, a running away. A sweet delicious freedom. If they locked him away, oh god, he would be a fucking escape artist. If felt so fucking good, with your heart pounding in your chest and your mouth dry and every sound magnified and then you were free and nothing could hurt you, at least not for a while. 

There was the open sky and the long rows of fields and it was all beautiful because no one else was telling you what to do and 

*Is that all you run from? From Frito and from Averman? From their physical restraints?* 

Mulder closed his eyes again. Put his face in his hands. Was reminded of a time when he simply could not face another beating. Simply could not endure another night of screams. There had been three in one week, three and his wrist was already in a cast and his head hurt and the welts on his butt had broken out into pussy sores. He had a fever, but he wouldn't say anything. And that gun, the same gun that hadn't protected Samantha, that gun that hadn't helped him keep her home. It was smooth and cool and quick and then there would be nothing. No thoughts, no pain. No fear. It was the closest he had ever been to suicide. Nothing mattered, not the future, not his mother, not himself. He just wanted to avoid the pain. Then his father had come in. Come in ready to rage and to belt and to hurt and he had seen his son's closed face and the gun. And gently pried it away from his son's fingers. And cried, while Mulder stared, not understanding why his father would be so sad. It wouldn't bring her back, but it would pay. His death would pay. His father had been so drunk, Mulder doubted he even remembered the gun or the tears. He surely hadn't mentioned it and nothing had changed. 

"Here." Sam's voice was quiet. 

"No." Mulder turned his face away. "Fuck you, Frito. Fuck you. No more drugs. I just want to go away. Stop hovering over me. Stop controlling me. Stop telling me to have emotions." 

He heard a gentle sigh. "Francis, Francis, please look at me." 

And Mulder couldn't, or he could but he was terrified of what he would see. 

"Marion, I'm going to give you some Valium. Then you're going to get into the car and go back to the hotel with Meyers." 

"No. I've got to stay here." As he said it, he knew it was true. The whoosh of tires, the guttural sound of combustion motors, the grinding of loose gravel on asphalt. There were other cars. Several other cars. 

"They're not digging her out right now. We've got to get a team from Oklahoma City. Averman's already asked for it." 

*When will they find Samantha? Will some other agent driven by internal ghosts dig through the soul with the edge of a barlow and find the white of bones, the rot and decay of brown hair, once kept back in neat braids?* 

Mulder jerked to look at Frito. Sam started. Heard Meyers and Williams talking to the locals, telling them what to do. Francis' face was twisted, almost inhuman. Then it relaxed into something less frightening, into the face a child. 

"We got more problems? Helluva' a thing. I thought, boy's gone 'round the bend." The voice was Hardman's. Sam put up a hand to stop the ceaseless chatter. 

"Where is Samantha?" Mulder asked softly. 

Sam closed his eyes, felt the blood drain out of his face. Took a deep breath and returned his friend's gaze. "No one knows." 

"I have to find her. It's all the matters. I found this girl. Why won't they let me find Samantha?" A soft, plaintive voice. "I'm so scared. All I want is to find her. Why won't they let me find her too?" 

"I don't know, man. I don't know. Come on, let's get some antibiotics back into you before you spew again." Sam's eyes were kind. Mulder swallowed. Nodded. 

 

 

There was silence, a sharp, dank silence between Mulder and Meyers. What Frito had given Mulder was not Valium but more Haldol, a clear shining cup of liquid. Mulder had looked at Sam, betrayed. Sam had shrugged apologetically. "You kept talking about your sister." 

Mulder had wanted to throw the cup to the ground, wanted to make an issue of it. But he did not want to be restrained, to have the fat buttfucking sheriff fall on him, watch a needle bury itself into Mulder's flesh. And then, at that point, there would be no more words, and Michael would die. Would most certainly die. In the end, his own feelings and his own terrors did not matter. All that mattered was a small boy who did not understand why his new keeper did not want his dick sucked. 

So now he rode back to the hotel, and he could already feel the drug coursing in his veins, could already feel a numbing tiredness dragging into his joints and into all his muscles. The drug was robbing him of anger, of energy. It was beginning to dull his thoughts, to stop the racing and the knowledge. 

"Stop here," Mulder directed. 

Meyers' grip tightened on the steering wheel, and he did not slow down. He glanced at Mulder, trying to shape words. 

"Fucking stop, I'm going to vomit," Mulder said more sharply than he meant to. 

Meyers' foot on the brake was sharp and sudden, a starting like a rabbit caught in headlights. They were on the shoulder and Mulder opened the car door, tumbled out. 

He could not think, could only wrap his arms around his terribly bruised chest, only let the candy bars and the tea come out of his mouth, only sit when he was done, only sit with his eyes closed, and then lean against the open door of the Buick Century. No energy left, nothing in his stomach, nothing that would stay down. His chest and his diaphragm hurt. His fingers shook. He shouldn't have tried to eat candy bars and potato chips. Oh God. Everything was numb. And the Haldol, most of it anyway, was lying in bile and the half-digested remains. All he wanted to do was sit there quietly, let the hot Oklahoma sun pull out the cold chill in his bones. 

A smell, fresh. Mulder opened his eyes. Meyers had some baby wipes, the little carry-all package they put up as impulse purchases in Wal*Marts. 

"Williams likes these after cheap ribhouses," Meyers said apologetically. 

Mulder's fingers shook too much to pull one free so Meyers did it for him. 

"You were three sessions ahead of me at Quantico." Meyers said. "All I heard about." 

Mulder tried to wipe his face. His hands were tired. Sore. He felt Meyers take the wipes. 

"Spooky this and Spooky that. Is it true that they handed you a real case and told you it was just practice?" 

"No." Meyers finished wiping his mouth. "No. They thought they had solved it. Sent the wrong guy to jail for a few years. I got it as a practice case, did the profile. When they told me I was wrong I took the profile apart point by point, did the same for the rest of the case. . .it would have lowered my rank to the bottom of my class, and left an innocent man in jail. Does Williams believe in water, or just wipes?" 

Meyers grinned. "It's said you were never posted to a regional assignment. No water. First convenience store we come to. Water." 

Mulder nodded, pulled himself up on the car. God, he hurt. They were buckled in, barrelling down the long straight highway when he bothered to answer Meyers question. "They were scared to let me converse with local yokels," he responded weakly, grinning. Fuck you Frito. I got enough to make me sluggish, to do what the Valium might have done. Most it's lying on the Oklahoma roadside. Fuck you, Samuel Rodriguez. It was an escape of a kind. "So they paired me off with Reggie Pardue in Violent Crimes. A fucking ASAC shepherds a rookie around. Like I was bone china and they were scared of dropping me." Mulder snorted. "I've heard that really good bulls, their sperm sells for thousands of dollars." 

Meyers glanced at him, then shrugged, evidently deciding that the drugs were working all thrusters now and that Mulder was rambling. "Yeah," he replied. 

"That's what I am. Except that instead of sperm I give off profiles. I catch killers. I'm not a real person. I'm just a bull, jerk me off a few times and then take what you want." It would not do to keep talking. Meyers was expecting drugged out. Mulder folded his arms around his chest and closed his eyes. 

 

"We're here." The hand was gentle. Mulder opened his eyes, squinted at the hotel. Nodded. "Listen, they want me to sit in the room with you." Meyers was apologetic. "I need to go by my hotel room first, grab some work." 

Mulder nodded. "Yeah. Okay." His stomach hurt. "You got any change?" 

Meyers rooted around. Came up with forty cents. Mulder had sixty. 

"Why don't I get us some Cokes while you get some paperwork?" 

Meyers snorted. "I may not be the Spooky, but I'm not stupid." 

Mulder glanced at Meyers. He really hadn't thought about running. "That would be pointless. I went because I had somewhere to go, something to find. We need that body. If we can identify her we can identify him." 

"The woman said you were prophesying," Meyers said pointlessly, walking with Mulder to the elevator. 

"What woman?" 

"The woman at the tent." 

Mulder frowned. "The tent revival?" 

"Yeah. You know the one that scared Rodriguez and Cooke shitless?" 

Mulder nodded as though he understood. Decided to let it drop and act woozy. 

They found a Coke machine on Meyers' floor. Mulder hung back, let Meyers select the drinks. Coke and a Sprite. 

Let Meyers get his shit together in a briefcase. Followed Meyers up to the room. Continued in part 14................ 

=========================================================================== 

From: livengoo@tiac.net Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 14/41 NC-17 Date: 3 Feb 1996 07:54:14 GMT 

Oklahoma (Part 14/41) By Amperage and Livengoo Copyright October, 1995 

International Readers: No third season spoilers Rating: NC-17 for language and violence 

Fox Mulder and the X-Files are the creation and intellectual property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting. The FBI is the property of the US Government. Oklahoma and Louisiana and Texas belong to exactly who you think they'd belong to, and everything else belongs to Amperage and Livengoo. 

____________ 

Individual blades of grass and specks of dirt cast stark shadows in the lights. The heat of them pulled sweat from Averman's skin, squeezed his eyes shut with the pain of their brilliance. He could smell the sap of the junipers where the casings of the lights sent baking thermoclines up into the tree, hear the buzzing of the filaments, stunning summer insects and animals into a humming silence. 

Beads of sweat on Rodriguez' face caught the light, refracted it. Averman could see the sweat that matted the shorter man's black hair. The doctor's sunglasses threw back the light, unnatural under stars. A faint, welcome breeze could do little to truly cool the tiny space that had been a chapel for so many, a chapel for one, a grave for some. 

Sam worried his lip, trying to see everyone at once. It would be hours until the real evidence team got out here, but he had to secure the site, be sure the locals didn't trample it or damage what little was here. Oklahoma City's office had squawked, not seeing the urgency of such an old grave at first. It had taken Averman to convince them. If Sam had ever doubted Averman's military career, he didn't after that. Clint Eastwood probably called Averman to consult when he did that stupid movie, the one about that moronic raid. Guy should have stuck to westerns. 

Averman, next to him, heaved a long, deep sigh. "You have any trouble with the kid?" The first words he'd said that didn't have to do with evidence. Frito ran his fingers through his soaked hair, trying to let the air reach his scalp. 

"Some. He didn't want to take the Haldol. Hell, I didn't want to give it to him." That still hurt. The look on Marion's face while he studied that cup and considered the odds. "Thank God he drank it. For a second there. . . " 

"Yeah. I know. I wasn't that sure you wouldn't have to use the needle, myself. But I was hoping. He tell you why he hared out like that?" 

"Maybe. I don't really. . . he was talking about the case, and about listening to voices in shadows and how we were all so scared of him." Sam felt his mouth pull tight, holding back the fears for a friend. Hell. Hell and shit. Friends were people you and your wife invited to dinner and sent Christmas cards to. Pathologists usually didn't spend all that much time in the line of fire, but the time Sam had spent over the last year and a half had been spent with Fox Mulder. That wasn't a friend. Sam looked up into Averman's squint. "He said every advance we'd had was because of what he'd seen and figured, and he was right. We can't send him home, and he knows it." 

"If he's a danger to himself. . . " Averman's voice was dry and hollow. 

"Hell, man. He's been a danger to himself on this since day one. We just don't have anyone else who can get a handle on this asshole, so we use the barb-wire and bubble-gum on Francis and hope we can pick up the pieces after we're done." Sam heard the sour notes in his own voice. Thought of the drugs in his briefcase and how he'd feel. . . and was glad he hadn't eaten because he'd have done a Francis and blown it. He glared at a young cop with a big camera who might have been too close to the site but probably wasn't, screamed at the asshole to get away from there and leave it alone. Averman didn't even twitch. 

"Pendajo, fucking shit-berries. . . " Sam got himself back under control. Frowned. "I'm going on vacation after all this shit is over. Gonna try to forget I ever set foot in this fucking state." 

A smile on the narrow, tan-dry face of the AIC. "You know, I own a house in Oklahoma City, but sometimes I feel just the same way." Watched two of the young cops, and the fat one who'd been bragging about pulling over the crazy fed, as the three of them ran yellow tape around the scene. More a matter of having something to do than anything else. "Rodriguez, you got any idea at all what we're looking at next?" 

The pathologist didn't even pretend not to understand. "He took this kind of hard, Averman. I don't know. . . I guess he keeps thinking he'll find his sister. I just don't really know. But I really, really doubt we'll have an easy night tonight." 

And they waited, in the violent light that not would be the last assault those poor, lonely bones would have to suffer. 

 

 

Meyers frowned and looked back over his report, marking out handwritten lines until half of it was scribbled out. God, he hated doing these. Hated having to write all his thoughts out like this, knowing he'd missed the best ideas. Everything on the page looked so stupid when he read back over it. 

He glanced up at Spooky, lying there with the Coke can held to his head like a compress, remote in hand. Wondered what Spooky's paperwork looked like and if he ever had to struggle over it. 

"How'd you like to do my paperwork, Spooky?" Soft, in case he was wrong and the guy was sleeping. The flickering light from the television screen cast blue highlights, and the low sound could almost cover Meyers' voice. 

Nope. Head turned too fast, and his eyes, open but flat and glazed. "Sorry, Meyers. You'll have to fuck up on your own. I do it and they'll call you a genius, then shoot you full of drugs." Meyers winced. Spooky went back to nursing what might have been a headache. 

"Uhh. . . you want any food, Mulder? I mean. . . if what Cooke was saying is true, you could use it." Slow, empty smile but Spooky left his eyes shut. 

"So what'd Cooke say?" Far away voice. Yeah, the drugs were hitting the Spookster all right. Meyers shivered and wondered what was going on in his head. 

"He said you were ill. Said you were weird anyway, but that your head was really fucked up with the flu." That wasn't what Cooke had said, but it sounded good to Meyers. "He said the antibiotics and all were making you loopy, but you still had the best handle on the bastard." 

"Thanks, Meyers. I think I'll wait for breakfast so I can listen to Cooke myself." And Mulder finally rolled onto his side, pulled the ugly, patterned spread over himself and relaxed. Meyers watched him until he saw a slow, steady rhythm of sleep move his ribs. 

Half out of his mind, and he could still think like a fucking baby-killer was what Cooke had really said. Tried to kill them all, but the best chance they had of nailing the murdering fucker's dick to the wall. Somebody should make sure Cooke didn't drink at lunch. Averman had about strangled him with his own guts and Cooke had finally shut up. Meyers went back to his report. 

 

The television was showing static and hissing when a faint noise snapped Meyers' head back out of the nod, hurting his neck. The empty bed caught his eyes first, and his guts twisted in dread. 

The sound of piss hitting water reminded him he could breathe, and his shoulders sagged in relief. 

Two in the morning and no one but Spooky here. Dead of the night. The evidence team must have arrived from Oklahoma City by now, and the doc and the AIC would be supervising. Meyers heard water running, heard Spooky spit. He must be trying to clear the taste of the drugs and puke and whatever from his mouth, poor bastard. 

Knock on the bathroom door. "Hey Spooky, you okay in there?" Heard the water shut off. 

"I can take a leak by myself, Meyers. I don't need anyone holding my dick." Cripes. Remind him not to hover over Spooky Mulder again. It might not bother Rodriguez, but the women in his class would have racked his balls if he'd talked like this guy did. 

The door opened. 

Spooky's face was still wet, but he was dressed in running shorts and a sweatshirt now. Christ. When had he gotten up and changed? Meyers shivered at the bright gleam in his eyes, the quick, abrupt way he moved. It reminded Meyers of his home in Florida, of the way iguanas flickered across the road in the heat, moving too damn fast to catch. It sure as hell wasn't what he expected at two in the morning on a gut full of sleepy drugs. 

Spooky had the sheets flipped up, looking under the bed. He tossed one sneaker out, fast and hard into the middle of the floor. 

Was fishing for the other. . . " 

"Uhh, Mulder? What are you doing?" Meyers swallowed. Christ, he could see what Spooky was doing. What he really wanted to ask was how he could be doing this with that much crap in his bloodstream. The look on Spooky's face said he knew exactly what Meyers was thinking, and didn't care. How could eyes look glazed and bright all at the same time? 

"Running. I like to get in four miles a day, and I spent today on my ass. Get your sneaks, Meyers, or Averman'll ream you a new asshole for letting me out of sight." Mulder thought it was funny. Shook his head. "Think you can keep up with me? You went through Quantico after I did. . . or have you been back on the donut wagon?" 

Meyers shook himself loose and scrambled for his stuff, hoping Spooky told the truth when he said there'd be no point in his trying to get away again. Not like he could rent a car at two a.m. 

Meyers was back upstairs fast, and Mulder was stretching out. God in heaven, but Meyers didn't like this. Tied his laces and listened to Mulder pace while he wrote a note telling the AIC where they were and what they were doing. He didn't venture to tell him why. 

Then followed Spooky down the stairs, not even bothering with the elevator. Through the lobby and out the front doors, ignoring the stares of the graveyard shift staff at the desk. It was finally cool out here, with mist hanging along the highway. Stars overhead, and crickets and frogs noisy in the dark. And Spooky, falling into long, loping strides along the shoulder of the highway. 

Cars blew by, few and far between. Meyers hung back about twenty feet, trying to pace himself. Spooky wasn't a lot older, and god, could he run. Meyers was in shape, but Spooky was still running smooth and steady as Meyers felt his heart slamming and his muscles going tight. By the time Mulder turned around Meyers' feet hurt, his calves burned, and the stitch in his side was eating his guts. God, how could the bastard run when he hadn't eaten, barely slept, and was drugged to the eyes? Spooky, spooky. . . 

Oh god, miles and miles. And a car pulled in next to him, slowed. Oh god, he could barely see and some pervert was going to kill him and Spooky would keep running and then Averman's voice was telling Meyers to get in. Opened the door. Meyers just imploded into the seat, sweating and gasping and so weak he could barely pull his legs into the car and pull the door shut after him. God, his eyeballs felt tired. His hair felt tired. And Averman put on the blinkers and paced Spooky Fox Mulder back to the hotel, where the bastard actually helped get Meyers up to the second floor and back to his own room, pulled off his sneakers and dumped him into bed, drenched with sweat and still wheezing for air. Meyers was asleep before he ever felt the covers go over him. Never heard the door shut. 

And Averman stood outside his door, jaw working, and stared at Mulder, taking in movements that were still too quick even with the drugs and running and exhaustion and no food. Controlled the urge to hit the younger man. 

"I thought someone as bright as you could have figured this one out by now." Mulder glanced at him, tried to focus on him, but couldn't keep his eyes still. 

"What, that you'd rather drug me stupid than let me work?" 

"This wasn't working. This was more of your bullshit, Mulder." He kept his tone conversational. Walking down the hall and letting Mulder set the pace up the stairwell, now that they didn't need the elevator for another victim of Spookiness. "You knew Rodriguez'd be frantic when you vanished. Knew what we'd think when we got back tonight." 

Mulder glanced back, and Averman wondered how he was doing this on the amount of Haldol Rodriguez had made him drink. Shuddered. God, the muscles in the kid's legs were spasming, and his breathing was so fast. Averman wondered if he could even feel what he was doing to his body. 

"I don't need this shit, Averman. I took my babysitter along. We left a note. Obviously you had no trouble figuring out where we were. I'm twenty-fucking-seven years old and I made it this far with nobody looking out for me." Averman thought of Mulder, staring at a wall and talking about his father hitting him, and was willing to bet that last was too true. Spooky shoved the door open too fast, and it slammed back against the wall. Averman caught the door on the rebound, shut it. 

Mulder was pacing, wired. Averman was wishing Rodriguez wasn't still out with the evidence team. "Son, either you sit down and get ahold of yourself, or I sit on you." Mulder glared at him again. 

"See how hard you can push me, Averman. Call me 'son' again and we'll see." 

The AIC sighed, crossed his arms. Wondered if the jokers in D.C. really had their heads up their asses, or if they just figured they'd use Spooky until they'd wrung him dry, and then lock him up somewhere. God, when would the kid crash? Would he have to call a doctor? Maybe Guiterriez knew somebody out here. When he left the site, he had figured Rodriguez had another hour out there before he could leave. He might be as little as fifteen minutes away now, might be another hour or two. So, call and find out? Get somebody else? Or wait and see if Mulder ran himself into the ground? 

Oh Lord, oh Lord help him. The kid was flipping open the computer, booting it up. Hadn't they had enough? 

"I don't think we need any of this tonight, Agent Mulder. . ." 

Spooky shook the hand off his shoulder, fingers flying wildly over keys. He was not even looking at what he wrote, choosing to glare at Averman, drive him away from him with anger as hot as the lights had been. Typing blind. Sweat rolling down his face. 

And Averman watched the gloss of sweat over pallid skin, hands trembling and muscles twitching as a mind that couldn't rest forced them on and on. He knew this, had seen it before, but Rodriguez had cut it short. This time it just went on and on, and Averman had no idea what to do for it. The doctor had the drugs, all Averman could do would be to call 911 and slam the door on Fox Mulder. Do that and admit the kid was gone, no way back home, on the long trip into the dark. And a little kid, at least one little kid, would take a trip into the dark courtesy of a man who'd send him to Jesus. Averman fought down his own nausea and watched, until he heard keys rattling in the hall, felt relief well through him. Mulder's eyes weren't tracking away any more, were fixed on his typing. And his fingers stumbled more and more, pausing sometimes. 

Frito heard the keys, heard harsh breathing and no television and felt red flare in front of his eyes. Threw his briefcase onto the bed. His hands shook as he popped the latches and drew a syringe. He didn't even need to look. Fucking Fox Francis Marion Mulder up and pulling chains again, more Eliot, more raving. The bastard was going to sleep and he'd be damned if he didn't. Frito was so tired. . . 

He had the needle in his hand, went through the connecting door with his anger around him and stopped, seeing Averman's long, sad face, and Mulder, pale and entranced, fingers dragging across the keys. 

"Marion. . . " He couldn't feel his anger now, through the cold bitterness. Francis' eyes flickered, but stayed on the screen as though he could not look away. "Marion, you need to sleep." 

"Leave me alone, Frito. You all left me alone when they took her away. Leave me alone now." 

Frito swallowed. "Nobody here wants to hurt you, Francis." No, not now they didn't. What had he said this afternoon? About his sister, and the old woman had talked about his father "We want to help you find her, Francis. Jack and I. . . we won't let anyone hit you." 

Dreadful, flat eyes. He looked gaunt. Frito didn't think he'd kept down a full meal since they'd arrived. No wonder he was hallucinating. Now he was just staring back, and his fingers were finally drifting still over the keyboard, eyes drifting shut to snap open again. Frito bit his lip, then put the needle down and helped pull Francis onto his feet. Averman stepped in to help get him into bed. 

"Glad you showed. If he'd kept it up any longer I'd have had to take him to the emergency room." 

"What happened?" 

"He was running Meyers into the ground, just like the other night with us. Least the note they left didn't have any damned Eliot." 

Sam turned back to get the syringe while Averman got Francis' sneakers off. He was quiet now, but he needed sleep so badly, and Sam didn't trust that he could stay down on his own. He tried to find a spot that wasn't bruised to inject, but both skinny hips were black and blue. Sam pulled the sheets and quilt up against the cold he was sure Marion would start to feel. Looked up at Averman, who was saving and printing out what Spooky had written. 

"He'll give me hell for this tomorrow. You'll have to tell him he had a chaperon and no one took advantage." Averman smiled, but both of them knew it really wasn't that funny. He handed over the first page. 

'I do not know much aboutgods; but I think that the river is a strong brown god - sullen,untamed and intractable, Patient to somedegreem at first recognized as a frontier; Useful, untrustworthy as a conveyorof commerce; Then only a problem confronting the builder of bridges. The problem once solved, the brown god is almst forgotten By the dweller in cities - ever, however, implacable, Keeping his seasons and rages, destroyr, reminder Of what men choose to forget. Unhonoured, unpropitiated By worshippers of the machine, but waiting, watching and waiting. 

His rhythm was present in teh nursery bedroom. . . ' 

Our killer started began in tehgentle, coastal regions. Green, rolling, most likely Atlantc. The river is both physical frontier for him, and spiritual symbol. Teh Christian symbolism of water and the rivermshould need no exploration. He took Michael Weaverbird from teh river despoiled and delivered him to Jesus by tehriver innocent, baptism. 

Frito looked up at Averman. "He's using past tense, like the kid's already dead. Even he says the kid's still alive. . . " 

"I know." Averman handed over the second sheet, and Frito tucked it under and went back to the page he'd already begun. 

WHere is teh end of it, the soundless wailing, The silent witherring of autumn flowers Dropping their petals and remaining motionless; WWhere is there and end to teh drifting wreckage, Tehprayer of the bone on the beach, the unprayable Prayyer at the calamitous annunciation? 

There is no end of it, the voiceless wailing, Nooend to the withering of withered flowers, To teh movement of pain that is painless and motionless, To the drift of teh sea and the drifting wreckage, The bone's prayer t Death its God. Only the hardly, barely Prayable Prayer of teh one AAnunciation. 

It seems, as one becomes older, That teh past has another pattern, and ceases to be a mere sequence - Or even development: the latter a partial fallacy ENcouraged by superficial notions of evolution, Which becomes, in teh popular mind, a means of disowning the past. The moments of happiness - not tehsense of well-being, Fruition, fulfillment, security or affection, Or even a very good dinnner, but the sudden illumination - We had the experience but missed teh meaning, And approach to the meaning restores the experience In a different form, beyond any meaning We can assign to happiness. 

Will i find you under some tree somewhereorwill another hear teh voices and pull back the balding scalp of the earth? 

The backward look behind teh assurance Of recorded history, teh backward half-look Over the shouldre, towards the primitive terror. Now, we com to discovr that teh moments ofagony (Whether, or not, due to misunderstanding, Having hoped for tehwrong things or dreaded teh wrong thngs, Is not in question) are likewise permmanent With such permanence as time has. Weappreciate this better In the agony of others, nearly experienceed, Involving ourselves, than in ourown. 

He hasn't touched me, not like mama's men. I have toys and food, but he looks sosad. He says that it will hurt just a little, but then I'll be with Jesus and no one will hurt me again. I like him, I call him daddy adn he dosn't make medo the things mama makes me do. 

I can't remember. Why didn't they take me insted? 

Sam had to look up. His hands were shaking and he tasted the acid of bile in his mouth. Averman was sitting still, hands open in his lap, watching Mulder lie unconscious, rather than asleep. 

You cannnot face it steadily, but this thng issure, That time is no healer: the patientt is no longer here. 

"There have been so many times I just knew I was going to have to ship him home the next day," Sam sighed. "And then he'd wake up and. . .and just be okay. But this time. . . He's stopped teetering on the brink of psychosis. Now he's starting a long, slow slide down the hill. He's not just channelling anymore. He's started incorporating it into whatever happened to his sister." 

"Mulder has what? A PhD from Oxford?" 

"Yeah." 

"A guy like that, probably he could write his own ticket. Do whatever he wanted, get on with any good hospital, start his own practice, do research for fucking NIMH or whatever. Could be a professor. Fox Mulder applies to the FBI before he's finished his orals. I was recruited before I finished my ten with the Marines. FBI, DEA, CIA, NSA. I liked the FBI best. Appealed to some romantic sense of knighthood I guess." Averman sighed. "Why did Fox Mulder want to be an FBI agent?" 

Rodriguez sighed, considered the wrapped figure, curled up in bed. Swallowed. "Because his main goal in life is to find his sister." 

Averman nodded. "He's no further gone than he has been this whole case. We're just getting down past all the veneer and all the nicey-nice defenses. He found someone's sister. And he's probably thinking it's pretty fucking unfair that he can find someone else's sister, but not his own." 

"You think she's dead?" 

"Probably. But he doesn't. To Fox Mulder the idea that Samantha is dead is terrifying. But it's one he has to face everyday." Averman got up, found himself some water. "He wants her back. If he could ever get Samantha Mulder back, he thinks everything would be all right, would be perfect. His whole life is trying to get her back and failing that. . ." 

"To bring other ones home," Sam finished for Averman. "To see justice done." 

"To know what really happened. The truth." 

"What is he doing on this case? I don't think he's ever done this before. Not consciously, not like he's doing it now." 

"What? Found messages in Eliot, spoken with spirits and had the BVM come bless him?" Averman's voice was rough. "Hell, I think we could all go a lifetime without that happening." 

Sam frowned. "So what do we do?" 

Averman shrugged, rolled the waterglass around in his hands. "I don't know. I honestly don't know. Keep him safe I guess. Drug the hell out of him when we have to. Maybe I'll call Guiterriez in the morning. . . Look, go get some sleep. How long will Mulder be out?" 

"I don't know." 

Averman nodded, deliberating. 

"We'll get Meyers to watch him tomorrow." 

"I don't understand how he managed to move, much less go for a jog." Sam's voice was flat. "I fucked him over with the drugs. Fourteen milligrams. Enough to turn him into a zombie for a while. He must have really been wired." 

A sudden thought occurred to Averman. "There were candy bar wrappers in that little Escort Mulder rented. Three of them and a bag of chips." 

Sam's eyes narrowed. "Oh shit. Oh fucking shit," Sam sighed. "I'm going to give him Dramamine instead of Haldol whenever I can. It'll help stop some of this vomiting, hopefully, and it's something Meyers can administer. And I'll make out a list of things to get Mulder, start pouring food down his throat and hope some of it sticks." 

 

 

Mulder was still curled around his pillow when Sam got up, sourly bitching about not getting enough sleep. He had moved from unconsciousness to sleep, was tightly coiled around the second hotel pillow. Sam sat down, began making a list. A knock came hesitantly and he opened the door with sigh. Meyers stood nervously in the doorway. "Averman said that I was going to help you with Spooky?" 

"You look tired, kid," Sam said. 

Meyers snorted. 

"Okay. Whenever he gets up make him take a valium. It's not much and its not heavy. Four milligrams. It won't do much, maybe take the edge off," Sam dictated, handing Meyers the bottle. "Take him to the grocery store. These are some of the things you can bring back." He handed Meyers the list. "Make sure you get a lot of Gatorade. That's the one thing he really, really needs to be drinking." 

Meyers nodded. 

"And watch him today. I won't have time. If he starts vomiting the Gatorade, cut it with water. As long as he takes the Valium, and goes to the store with you calmly, and keeps a jug of Gatorade with him, let him come to the sheriff's office. We'll have the body ready by then. If he starts losing it, force these down his throat." Sam handed the kid a bubble package of Dramamine. "Two of them and he'll curl up ready for a nap." 

A swallow, a nod. "I've never been around anyone who's. . .crazy." 

Sam grinned, chuckled. "Sure you have kid. Lots of them. Mulder just finally got caught. Look, what's happening to Mulder is. . .part of it is just how well he's gotten into the killer's head. There isn't a shrink diagnosis for that because most shrinks, the ones that come up with diagnoses anyway, don't go out into the field and dig up dead bodies." Sam swallowed. "Now listen, the rest. . .some of the things I'm going to tell you I need for you not to talk about. Mulder. . .he doesn't need every field agent from here to Maine knowing about it, but if you're going to take care of him, you probably need to know. . ." 

Meyers nodded. 

"Not to your partner or your girlfriend or your supervisor." 

Another nod. "If he has to be protected, then he has to be protected. There'd be a kid killer we couldn't track without him." 

Sam let go of the pent up breath in his gut. "Okay. The other part is a disorder called PTSD and you'll be damn lucky if you don't suffer from it to some extent before you retire. It means Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. . .it's. . .you see something terrible, horrible, awful, something happens where you might get killed, something that's so scary you can't think. . .and then your brain gets a little fried. Decides fuck this, it plans to never let this happen to it again. Mulder's little sister disappeared when he was twelve. He was there and he doesn't remember what happened to her. Add to that some other bad things. . .his dad beat up on him for losing her. . .and then all the things he's seen since he came to work for the efffbeeeeye." 

"That's . . .it's like what veterans go through. My dad was in Vietnam, he was in the infantry. A Sergeant, then they gave him a field promotion to Lieutenant. He made Captain before he left. He did four tours. He used to scream at night and sometimes he'd do weird shit. Not very often." 

"That's exactly what Mulder's going through, just worse because of the baby killer. Normally he's just like your dad." 

The look on Meyers' face was not frightened anymore. He understood, he could relate it to his own life. Mulder was like his dad and his dad was undeniably *not* crazy. 

"When will he wake up?" 

Sam shrugged. "Did he vomit on you?" 

"Yeah. On the road." 

Sam nodded. "He vomited up all the Haldol I gave him. That's why he was able to run your socks off." 

Meyers shut his eyes. "I feel like such an idiot. I should have known that. . .Oh God. I'm sorry. I should have called you when he puked. I should have. . ." 

"Don't worry about it." Sam snorted. "You're the one who paid for it. Not any of us." 

Continued in part 15.................. 

=========================================================================== 

From: livengoo@tiac.net Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 15/41 NC-17 Date: 5 Feb 1996 07:15:22 GMT 

Oklahoma (Part 15/41) By Amperage and Livengoo Copyright October, 1995 

International Readers: No third season spoilers Rating: NC-17 for language and violence 

Fox Mulder and the X-Files are the creation and intellectual property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting. The FBI is the property of the US Government. Oklahoma and Louisiana and Texas belong to exactly who you think they'd belong to, and everything else belongs to Amperage and Livengoo. 

Also, I thought I'd already posted this. If you see it twice, forgive me and let me know. Goo 

___________________ 

The kid was pale and white faced, eyes dulled somehow. But he had a half-liter bottle of Gatorade in one hand and was chugging it down. The sheriff's office was littered with fibbies, all jockeying and trying to look busy. When Agent Mulder came in, they all glanced, were somehow, Hardman didn't know. . .deferential, Hardman guessed, that's the only way to put it. 

And the young crown prince just strode through them with Meyers following like a puppy dog. "The body?" he asked in what, Hardman guessed, he thought was a polite tone. 

"Downstairs. Ethel," he barked at Ethelred, one of the deputies, trying to fill out his traffic tickets in the midst of all this madness. "Show Agent Mulder the morgue." 

Ethel swallowed, nodded. 

"You feelin' any better son?" he asked sympathetically. He'd had intestinal flu several years ago. It wasn't something you soon forgot. Kept him in bed a week. And this kid was working. Fuck. 

Mulder shrugged, glanced at the Gatorade bottle. "If I'm not better soon, Meyers here has orders to shoot me and put me out of my misery." 

"My doc gave me Compazine when I was puking my gut once." 

Mulder chuckled. "I hallucinate on Compazine. Magic bullets of schizophrenia to shove up my butt." 

Hardman blinked. Oh. He stared at the flat eyes of the Special Agent, understanding why the kid seemed to be talking to the spirits. Whatever they were giving him. . .probably scared he was going to hurt himself when he went out on the road yesterday. 

 

 

The body was carefully arranged on the table. Evidence bags holding all the bits and pieces of cloth and hair and jewelry were scattered on the floor. 

"You look like shit," Frito observed, hand curled over an evidence report. 

"Thanks. I feel like a decaying rodent the cat forgot about. 

Sam glanced up at Meyers, who shrugged. 

"What have you got?" Francis asked, kneeling in front of the evidence bags. 

"Umm. . .ten to twelve year range probably. . .girl. slender." 

"How did she die?" 

"I'm getting there, Marion. Hold your fucking dick until I'm ready to come too," Frito said mildly. "Blonde child. She's been dead ten, fifteen years." 

"Try six or seven," Mulder said calmly, looking down on the pathetic collection of bones and small bits of flesh. "Her body was in a. . .a crypt or a vault or something for a while, so it dried out faster.." 

"Who's the ME here?" Sam asked, frustrated. 

Mulder looked up, grinned. "Sorry Sammy. Didn't mean to step on your balls." 

"It's okay," Sam dismissed. "Have you kept the Gatorade down?" 

"So far." Mulder hopped up on a clear metal counter, put the bottle between his legs. "Get on with it." 

"Umm. . .she ate pretty well, no real nutritional problems. She was a battered child." 

Mulder looked up. "Okay." 

"There is still evidence of scars on her buttocks. Someone laid into her pretty heavy." 

Mulder swallowed. "Then we're not looking at someone in the upper strata of society. If you're middle class, they. . .umm . . .they stop before it starts leaving sores, mostly. Work over a bunch of different places. . ." 

Meyers stared at the floor. 

Sam just nodded. "I don't know much else." 

"What evidence for sexual abuse?" 

"I don't know." Sam shrugged. "Honestly. If I could tell you, I would." 

"Do we have an ID?" 

"No. Jewelry was all cheap fake stuff. Except for this." 

Sam went over to the evidence bags, pulled something up. 

"What is this?" 

"It's a Tri-Delt sorority ring, with medical tape behind it so it wouldn't fall off her finger. Probably belonged to her mother." 

"The mother was dead, so she had the ring," Mulder whispered. 

"There's lettering in it. ADF. Eighteen karat gold," Sam finished. "We've started a trace, looking for women with those initials who were tri-delts from the mid fifties to around 1972." 

"How did she die?" Mulder looked up from the ring. "And it was in the sixties. At Radcliffe." 

Sam swallowed, glanced at the report. "She cut her wrists. Slashed them pretty badly. There's still sand in the cuts, so she was lying in a spring or something like that when she killed herself." 

It was Mulder's prediction. Marion and Frito exchanged even, level glances. *I'm not crazy* 

*You were right. You're still crazy.* 

"She was pretty," Frito said evenly. "Really, really pretty. The kind of beautiful that walks down runways and makes men stumble. Or she would have been." 

Mulder nodded. "I bet her brother looks like a catamite," He whispered. He closed his eyes. Deflating suddenly. Looking tired and weary and unhappy. "Can I go out to the site?" he asked, hand still clutching the evidence bag. 

Sam nodded. "Averman called Guiterriez this morning. He's going to call back around four, so you need to be in your room." 

"Oh fuck that." 

"Mulder, do you remember talking about Samantha yesterday?" 

Mulder opened his eyes, drew the veneer of arrogant bastard back over himself. Rodriguez didn't let it phase him. "You were getting them mixed up." 

Mulder stared. 

"Do you remember your notes?" 

"What about my notes?" Mulder swallowed noisily. 

"You talked about Sam in your notes." 

"So?" 

"So, you need to talk to Guiterrez about it. I'm just a pathologist." 

"I'm not ready to be committed just yet." Each word sharp and steady and clear. Mulder stood stiffly and walked out. 

"If he loses it out there," Sam closed his eyes, "Call 911." Meyers watched the physician sit down heavily on a stool, stare at the body lying peacefully on the exam table. He looked, suddenly, very old. Very old and very weary of life. 

 

 

But Mulder didn't lose it. He finished off the Gatorade, looked over Meyer's notes. "Okay. Look," Mulder circled something, "these are your notes until you put down the final form and turn it in. Don't worry about format. Just write down the key facts and rearrange them on the paper until you can see the pattern. Use different colored pens for different trains of thought so you don't get confused. . .use highlighters to bring out things that are important from things that are crap." 

"But what about procedure." 

"I knew a girl named procedure once. . ." Mulder said, leaning back, not finishing the age old joke. 

"I'm not a genius." 

"Bullshit. You had to be pretty bright to get in. What's your background?" 

"A degree in Criminology, a couple of years in Ft. Lauderdale PD. But it wasn't. . .it was upper middle class types mostly. Mainly we tried to keep out the riff-raff and solve domestic disputes." 

"Well, then if you've done domestic you can do anything. Every fucking thing goes back to the home." 

Meyers kept his hands on the wheel, glancing occasionally at what Mulder was writing on his notes. The tidy sheets of black ball point in neat lines were covered with blue marks now, some just pointing out lines, others highlighting whole sections. 

"Do me a favor, Spooky. . . " 

"Hmm?" Flat eyes, lips a bit jaundiced looking from the way Gatorade stained. 

"Autograph it when you're done. No other way the guys'll believe I got tutored by Spooky Mulder." 

"Christ. I'm not writing 'to Meyers with love, Spooky' on any damn field notes. You can do your own reports if you want that kind of shit." He tilted his head back, letting the last of the Gatorade slide, luke-warm and salty-sweet, down the back of his throat. "God, it's like drinking sweat. Drop me off at a massage parlor and at least I can have a good time drinking sweat." 

"Yeah, I can see explaining that one to Rodriguez." 

"Hell, he's probably checked them out already." Mulder's tone was mild. He tossed the empty bottle in the back with the two already there. 

Miles of rolling hills, on and on forever. Meyers missed the comfortable distances and certainty of water of his home. How had humans ever survived this barren, rolling land of grass and sky? 

Spooky had long since finished marking up Meyers' notes, and might have been asleep, leaning back in the seat. The change in rhythm as they turned off the interstate brought his eyes open, watching. He glanced back. 

"This is where I picked up the watch dogs yesterday. Better stick to the speed. They see me again and the locals are gonna shit bricks." 

Meyers nodded, feeling his shoulders slowly unknot, tension leaking away from him, thankful that Spooky was behaving, being normal. They pulled into the parking lot of the park unnoticed, and over to where Spooky directed him. This time he locked the car doors. This time they didn't have cops behind him, just one guard on him. 

Meyers followed him up to the quiet place between the hills. The tiny bowl that had yielded the dead in the night was empty today. A huge gash of dun-brown marred the hillside under a juniper. They had taken what they wanted and left, sure that nothing remained. 

Trees ranged here where the hills kept the wind at bay. They stood tall and strong until they crested the hills, then bent, twisted out of their shapes by the world that surrounded this protected place. The ground under them was hard, and dry, clothed in creeping grasses and plants except where men had disturbed the ground. Mulder was pacing the line of trees now, staying to the empty bowl of the meadow just below them. Pacing and counting. 

"Do you know the stations of the cross?" His voice was sudden in this place, and Meyers jumped, then shook his head. 

"Sorry. I can help you with the Torah a little. . . " 

Mulder shook his head, staring up at the trees and circling again. Meyers watched, and tried to see his father's tempers, his father's fears. Tried to see how you wrote this up. Which stare do you highlight, Agent Mulder? Which snatch of poetry do you write in colored ink? And when you stop at the sycamore, what do you see? 

He was shaking his head, chewing on the earpiece of his glasses. Finally smiled just a little and beckoned Meyers over. 

"What do you see?" 

Trees. Thin grass. A few wildflowers. Meyers swallowed, pictured the grade book. "Uh, nothing. . . " Spooky glanced up at him, let his smile widen just a little. With the flat eyes it looked. . . hollow. "Does this have to do with. . . anything from the Bible? Or Eliot?" Oh god, more prophecies? 

"Archeology." Shaking his head now. "Even if the extraction team missed this, Frito knows better. And Averman should have." He was crouched, brushing at the thin grass, and Meyers was fingering the Dramamine in his pocket. "In England, aerial photography shows medieval villages. Soil that's been disturbed has different heat absorption qualities, even thousands of years after it's been touched." He looked up at Meyers, who simply stared and tried to remember what Dr. Rodriguez had said. 

"Meyers." Mulder read the look, sighed. "Meyers, grass grows differently on disturbed soil. Now, what do you see?" 

"Thin. . . thin grass? I mean. . . " Meyers eyes felt wide, and a smile raced across his face. "They missed something?" 

And Fox Mulder, star of Quantico, Spooky Mulder who solved three year old cases blind, and saw visions, grinned back. "Could just be a rock, but maybe, just maybe. . . " 

"So what do we do?" 

Mulder stood again, brushing his hands off. "We call Frito and tell him he's slipping, and that we may have found something." A sudden sour look. "And I wait for my 4:00 call." 

 

 

"Rodriguez?" 

Sam straightened to look back at Averman. His shoulders ached. He couldn't remember how long he'd been leaning on the examination table, staring at the remains, mind racing and getting nowhere. The AIC's bloodshot eyes scanned around the room, came back to him. "You okay?" 

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. Just. . . thinking." 

Averman sighed, ground the heels of his hands into his eyes. Looked back at the pathologist. "Looks like we're back out to that damned Chapel. Maybe, just maybe, we missed something." 

"What? We went over that site. . . The extraction team practically took half the real estate from up there." Frito felt hot, tired. And he had a bad feeling about anything to do with that site or any bodies. Francis had gone up there. . . 

"They had good reasons this time, Rodriguez. And not a word of Eliot in the whole mess." Averman's smile was strained. 

"Christ. I'm going to just drug him next time." He regretted it the minute it hung in the air, but his shoulders ached and sagged, and he had to work to draw a breath, he was so tired. But he grabbed what he needed and followed the AIC out of the cool world of the morgue, where everything to be found lay in front of a doctor who knew how to look. Out of procedure and sanity, and into the hot light of chaos. 

 

 

Spooky was back at the hotel and Averman wanted Meyers up at the site, to go through the reasoning and help with the work. The only agent available to watch Mulder was no one's first choice, and Meyers winced at the memory of Cooke and Spooky, perched on opposite sides of the hotel room, trying pointedly to ignore each other and pretend to be engrossed in paperwork. Somehow, Meyers didn't think Mulder was going to be highlighting Cooke's reports. 

Sam stared at the patch in nervous disgust. "Thin grass. We knew this might be a favorite site, and we missed it." 

Averman had been listening to Rodriguez develop this vein for several minutes, and was too tired to be patient. "Yes. We should have caught it. Absolutely. And yes, we missed it for good reasons. Dark, lights didn't reach here, take your pick and get it over with." They wouldn't call the extraction team back until they were sure there was something - someone - to extract. It was going to be a long afternoon. 

The area had been cleared and marked with string. Hardman had one of his people, a tribal liaison with some archeology experience, supervising a slow, careful exploratory dig. Sam swallowed the bitter taste in his mouth. He had caught exactly this kind of thing in the past, was trained to observe a site and see this. Be honest with himself. He hadn't missed it because of lights, or darkness. 

"I missed it. . . because I wasn't looking past that damned prediction. I was so scared last night. . . " His voice was soft, but Averman caught it. Nodded. 

"Yeah, me too. Me too." 

 

 

"Hi. They tell you I'm going psychotic?" Mulder's voice was dry. "You're punctual." 

"Thank you. They told me you were having some problems distinguishing between reality and fantasy." 

"Oh. No. I don't think so." 

Mulder heard a chair creak as Guiterriez leaned back. "Do you want to talk to me?" 

"Not particularly." 

A sigh. "Let's talk about your sister." 

"No." 

"Okay. We do need to talk about these manic states, if only so I can guide agent Rodriguez in his choice of medications." 

Mulder sighed. "I've had them before." 

"This badly?" 

"Not that often." 

"Okay, what's the usual frequency of ones this bad?" 

"I don't know. One every four or five months maybe." 

"What do you do?" 

"I go jogging. They won't let me go jogging because they can't keep up with me." 

"What do you think they're scared of?" A calm voice. 

"Fuck you. I'm not some paranoid schizophrenic with a head full of dope." 

"So answer the question." 

"They're scared I'll lose it," Mulder said, resigned, lying back on the bed, staring at the ceiling of Rodriguez' room. Cooke, in the other room, was studiously working on a press release. 

"Have you given them reason to believe that?" 

"I know it's fucking reasonable. That doesn't make it any the more fucking easy for me to accept. Okay?" 

"Calm down." The voice was quiet. "I know you're frustrated. But we have got to talk about this." 

"Why? So you can tell Frito to keep pumping my butt full of antipsychotics?" 

A deliberate pause. "Yes. So I can tell Rodriguez what to do." 

"Oh, fuck you." 

"Agent Mulder, I'm not going to make you answer, but I want you to think about what you might do in one of those manic states when you can't go jogging, if you can't work it off. Agent Rodriguez said you hit your hand against the wall." 

"You are so full of shit. I wouldn't hurt myself." 

"You wouldn't?" 

"No. I wouldn't," Mulder replied sarcastically. 

"But let's say you're stuck in the hotel room and you're in the middle of one of those attacks. And you can't do anything. But you've got to do something. Would you find something to make it go away? Something that might not be really good for you?" 

Mulder was silent. He closed his eyes. "Yes," he whispered. "I don't want to but I can't help it." Oh god, he wanted to talk to someone. He didn't want to tell them, but he wanted someone to know. He was alone and it was dark and he didn't know where to go. 

"Is jogging a way to hurt yourself?" 

"I don't. . .It. . .it makes it go away and I'm still smiling." 

"Makes what go away?" 

"I don't know. . ." Mulder paused. "I don't know," he stated finally. 

"If you don't have the jogging outlet what happens?" 

"I just. . .I. . .you know." 

"If it gets too bad, would you hurt yourself?" 

Mulder paused, suddenly aware of the trap Guiterriez had laid for him. He rolled over to the phone base and gently hung up the handset. Mutherfucking bastard. 

When it rang again he did not answer. Did not react, just lay on Sam's spread, staring at the nondescript print of some flowers. 

Cooke finally came back in, answered the phone. Mulder felt Cooke's hand on his shoulder, shaking him. 

"Get away from me, you cocksucking babykiller," Mulder snarled. "Leave me alone." 

Cooke solemnly reported the conversation. Mulder heard Cooke swallow. He sat up. Cooke's face was draining of color. Mulder snatched the phone away. 

"I'm not going to hurt myself you son of a bitch. I'm fine, just fucking fine. Leave me the hell alone." Slammed the phone back down. 

Cooke stared at him. Swallowed. "Rodriguez left some Dramamine for you," he muttered. 

"Oh Fuck off," Mulder snarled, got up, stalked off to Rodriguez's bathroom, locked the door. 

 

 

Sam's face was white under his olive skin as Averman drove to the hotel. "Are we going to let Guiterriez commit him?" he asked softly. 

Averman glanced at the younger man. "I don't know." 

"He technically didn't say, `Yes, I Fox Mulder will hurt myself.' If Mulder shows up for a committal meeting all Joe Cool, he can explain that tape away." 

"And if you tell them about his vomiting and odd behavior and hitting his fist against a wall. . ." Averman sighed. "It might stick." 

"Might and probably wouldn't," Rodriguez replied sourly. "He needs to be someplace safe. Where he can't hurt himself." 

"Agreed." 

"If we do that, we're looking at several more murders." 

"Agreed." 

"Do you think he'd kill himself?" 

Averman considered this question for several minutes. "No. Not unless he found out something more about his sister." 

"Like she was dead?" 

Averman nodded distractedly, pulled into the hotel parking lot. 

Continued in part 16......................... 

=========================================================================== 

From: livengoo@tiac.net Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 16/41 NC-17 Date: 5 Feb 1996 11:09:32 GMT 

Oklahoma (Part 16/41) By Amperage and Livengoo Copyright October, 1995 

International Readers: No third season spoilers Rating: NC-17 for language and violence 

Fox Mulder and the X-Files are the creation and intellectual property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting. The FBI is the property of the US Government. Oklahoma and Louisiana and Texas belong to exactly who you think they'd belong to, and everything else belongs to Amperage and Livengoo. 

______________________________ 

There were sobs in the bathroom. Cooke was sitting on the floor against a wall, white faced. He'd been crying. 

Oh God. Sam swallowed, nodded to Averman. "Get him some Valium and get him out of here. Send Meyers up." 

Averman nodded. Tugged at Cooke until he was up, in Mulder's bedroom. 

"Francis? Francis, come on." 

The sobs were soft. Oh shit, they were wrong. ohshitmulder'striedtopulltheplugohshitaverman'swrong. 

Rodriguez recalled Quantico training that he'd hoped he would never have to use. One-two-three and fuck. . .his shoulder was a mass of pain, but the fucking door was open. Mulder was curled up under the sink, a tiny little ball, staring at his knees. No blood. No cuts. How could anyone that tall fold up into such a little ball? 

"Leave me alone." Mulder's voice was sharp. "Leave me the fuck alone." 

Sam swallowed. "You know I can't do that. You know that." He sat down to await Meyers's arrival. "Guiterriez must have upset you." 

Mulder continued crying. He was trying desperately to stop, Sam recognized the breathing pattern, the holding to keep in sobs, then the relaxing, and the choking wails. Trying to stop it, and couldn't. 

"What's wrong?" Meyers was panting. And Williams. 

"Meyers, sit here with Mulder." Sam got up, went back into the bedroom where his syringe and the Haldol waited. Averman was just coming back in as Sam began drawing the clear liquid. 

"He's hostile right now, thanks to Guiterriez," Sam said sourly. "I'm drawing up ten mgs of this. That should be enough to calm him down, but he's not going to want to take it. You're probably going to have to hold him." 

Sam sat on the floor beside Meyers. Meyers was ashen faced, but just sitting quietly. "You want to talk about it?" Sam asked quietly. 

Mulder eyed the needle. "Guiterriez." 

"I don't know what to do, and neither does Averman. We need somebody to help us." 

"He set me up. He kept pressing and pressing and pressing and I didn't have any choice. I won't hurt myself. I'd let you drug me first. I don't want to hurt myself. He's going to want you to put me in a hospital tonight. Mutherfucker." 

"Mulder, he's seen a lot of people in similar circumstances. He knows how easy it is when you're fragile to. . ." 

"Bullshit." 

"No. It isn't bullshit," Sam replied patiently. "He thinks you're going to fall completely apart." 

Meyers shifted uncomfortably. 

"Before that happens he wants you someplace safe, someplace to cushion the fall." 

Mulder swallowed. Stared at Rodriguez and Meyers. "I think about her. A lot. Sometimes when I'm really tired, when I'm coming in from a case, I'll fall into this daydream. I'm coming home and there'll be a message on my machine. It'll be from Sam. She's in school and she's coming up for the weekend or she just wants to talk about her new boyfriend. But when I get in there isn't a message. Sometimes I manage to keep the fantasy alive long enough that I go to bed happy. Usually when I go through my messages and she hasn't called I know she's still gone." 

Sam sat still and listened. 

"I shared a bedroom with her. Our dad was a professor and he did work for the state department; he had a lot of papers and needed a study, and there were only three bedrooms. Sam and I both were scared of the dark. Sam was kinda' scared of it, and I was phobic, so they let us sleep together. . .we left her half of the room the way it was, so she'd know we hadn't forgotten about her. I'd come in and go to my room and stand there with my hand on the doorknob and think; I'd close my eyes and think really, really hard. If I could think hard enough, if I could believe hard enough she'd be there. Just like. . .like nothing had ever happened. Bugging me for help with her homework or something. But when I opened the door. . ." 

Mulder put his head in the nest between his drawn up legs and his torso. Began crying. A soft, gentle sadness. "She's gone and I don't know what happened, and I've got to find her someday," he managed softly. "And I see. . .I see other little girls and parents and siblings and I. . .how do we all make it? Do we just pretend? I don't know." 

"Guiterriez wants to say I'm crazy and maybe I am." Mulder lifted his face. "But I'm not going to hurt myself, even when I'm too full of energy. Sometimes I. . .it's like I can't concentrate but nobody notices. . .I have to replay things over in my head from my short-term memory, to catch what people are saying. I know that's because of what happened. And I get really angry sometimes, and I know that's because of what happened. The nightmares are because of it too. But I'm not psychotic. I can take care of myself when I have to. I'm not suicidal. I'm not self- destructive. Sam, please. I'm not any of those things. I don't know why this is happening. I've never. . .I can feel them and I can see them and I know what's rolling around in their skulls, but not this way. I've never had anything like this happen. I don't know why it's happening now. I've never had . .I've never. . .I feel like I am going crazy. But I'm not. I swear I'm not. I don't want to hurt myself." 

Sam felt his mouth go dry. 

"If you want me to take that stuff I will." Mulder swallowed. "I know you've got people out there ready to hold me down. Don't make me leave this case. We're getting so close. We can catch him." 

Yeah, and maybe you and he can be on the same ward of the psych hospital, Sam thought. He nodded. "Come on out of there and let me drug you into submission." 

"What are you going to do?" 

"I don't know." 

Mulder stared unwaveringly. 

"We're not going to commit you tonight." Sam sighed. "For what it's worth, I think you probably need some time in a psych hospital, but not against your will and. . ." he closed his eyes, "and not when there's a baby butcher out there." 

Mulder nodded. 

"Come on." Sam stood, held out a hand. 

Mulder stumbled when he stood, needed Meyers' help. He crawled back to his room, watched as Sam closed the door. Meyers and Rodriguez gently helped him shed his clothes, down to his shorts. "Go get the liquid," Sam told Meyers gently. He'd waste the suspension Haldol. The plastic of the syringe had already begun to absorb the chemicals. He sighed. 

Meyers came back with the briefcase. Let Sam find and fill the little plastic cup with its lines. "Okay. This is going to make you absolutely shitfaced." 

"You don't have to," Mulder replied. 

Sam snorted. "Right, Marion. You *are* losing your grip on reality. You need some down time after that stunt. Time to stabilize. I can't sit with you because we've got the team coming *back* out. And you won't have to listen to them bitch. Isn't it great how you have these things down? Don't have to listen to `well why didn't you catch this before?' `Why didn't you see it yesterday?' `Costing us money out of our budget and. . .' Bitch and moan. Bitch and moan." Sam smiled, watched as Mulder gulped the liquid down. 

"Are you hallucinating?" Sam asked gently. 

Mulder swallowed, but it had nothing to do with the medication. He nodded. "Not. . .I know they're hallucinations." 

"What are you seeing?" He nodded and Meyers left for the next room. 

"I'm hearing voices. They keep asking why I can't find Sam. . .I see this little girl. The one you dug up. Elijah sees her. That's why I see her. He thinks she's like. . .heaven lets her help take the children he sends up to heaven. The kids can see her too." 

Sam nodded. In normal times he would know Mulder was suffering from some form of psychosis. Right now he just wasn't sure. 

 

 

He slipped back over quietly. 

"Meyers, you're the official Spooky watcher when I'm not around," he said tiredly. "He trusts you. I'll teach you how to give him the shots." 

"How is he?" Averman asked quietly. He was ready to get in a car and drive Mulder back to Oklahoma City. 

"He's going to be good to work for a while. He got rid of a few things." Sam watched as the FBI agents filed out, left them alone, disaster averted. "He needs someone to talk to, but he's terrified of telling anyone anything. Telling me because I work with him. Telling you because you're a superior, telling Guiterriez because Guiterriez wants him in a hospital. . ." He sighed. 

"I think I understand his behavior. He's. . .I don't know. . .I could say he was psychotic, but then I saw the BVM. Most people would say I'm psychotic for thinking that. I don't think he's crazy. He's just. . .tired. Tired and wishing his sister were back and she's not. If he were psychotic, he wouldn't know that she was gone. But he knows it. He knows it too well." Sam sat down on his bed. 

"Why don't you all go to supper? You can bring me something back. See if you can get a mashed potato or some plain rice or something. And a couple of packets of butter. We'll feed it to Mulder when he wakes up." 

Averman stared hard at Sam, then nodded. 

When he was alone, Sam closed his eyes, curled up in bed. He called home, but Jenni was out, probably with her friends. The misery that Oklahoma had become was nothing that touched her or affected her unless Sam called. He listened to the message on their machine. Hung up, dialed back. Listened again. And again. Finally left Jenni a message. Took a cue from Mulder and curled around the second pillow. Tried to nap. It would be a long night when the team got in. And then Mulder would wake up and who the fuck knew what kind of mood Mulder was going to be in anymore? 

 

 

He felt something bitter in the back of his mouth and tried to smack some saliva back into himself. Moaned and rubbed sleep crud out of his eyes. 

The room was mostly dark, with a glimmer of light through the connecting door. Mulder stared at the door. Oh God, he'd . . .no. He'd done what he had to. Guiterriez was trying to lure Mulder into a web. That was no doubt fine for the people Guiterriez normally saw. But Mulder wasn't one of those people. Mulder had a degree that surpassed Guiterriez'. An intellect that surpassed Guiterriez'. 

The thought of what he had told Frito rolled through his head. He hadn't planned it, but it worked. He was so tired. He sat up, reoriented the world once it stopped spinning. Found the door. Meyers was sitting on the bed, flipping through channels. Johnny Carson was on. Meyers glanced at Mulder nonchalantly. "Why. . ." Swallow. "Why don't we get you some clothes or a robe?" he asked softly. 

Mulder suddenly realized he'd come over dressed in his boxers and nothing else. He nodded. Went back to his room, found some shorts and a t-shirt. 

"What's going on at the site?" Mulder's voice was thick and blurry. Not slurred, just not. . . easy. As though the words took work to form. 

Meyers stared, suddenly nervous. Mulder watched him, flat, empty eyes that slowly came back into focus. "What's going on at the site?" Meyers started as the question was repeated. 

"The extraction team's back out there." He smiled apologetically. "They're bitching and moaning. Want overtime, too." Mulder nodded. 

"Yeah, they like to get it all done at once." He vanished back into his room, came back with his laptop dangling from one hand. "No chance of us getting out there tonight, is there?" It wasn't much of a question and the smile that accompanied it wasn't much of a smile. 

"I. . . I don't think that's a good idea. It's just the excavation now, anyway. I think. . . " Meyers licked his lips. Looked back into Spooky's empty stare. 

"You mean Rodriguez and Averman don't think it's a good idea." 

"They brought something up." Meyers picked up the styrofoam box of mashed potato and Texas toast, held it out like a peace offering. Spooky took it, slightly wrinkled his nose, took a piece of the toast and nibbled at it. Meyers fished out a Gatorade and handed it to him. 

He turned back to his reports, glancing up every few minutes. Spooky was sitting cross-legged on the other bed, his computer open, the soft whine of it just below the audible range. He just stared at it for a while, eyes reflecting the blinking cursor. The sudden clatter of his fingers on the keys startled the other man. Meyers looked up to see the flicker in his eyes as letters scrolled across the screen. 

In the uncertain hour before the morning Near the ending of interminable night At the recurrent end of the unending After the dark dove with the flickering tongue Had passed below the horizon of his homing While the dead leaves still rattled on like tin Over the asphalt where no other sound was Between three districts when the smoke arose I met one walking, loitering and hurried As if blown towards me like the metal leaves Before the urban dawn wind unresisting. And as I fixed upon the down-turned face That pointed scrutiny with which we challenge The first-met stranger in the waning dusk I caught the sudden look of some dead master Whom I had known, forgotten, half-recalled Both one and many; in the brown baked features The eyes of a familiar compound ghost Both intimate and unidentifiable. 

"Why do you think he does it?" Meyers head snapped up at the sudden question. Spooky's hands hovered above the keys, dark, hazel eyes watching him. 

"Does what? I mean, you wrote the profile. . . you're the psychologist." 

"So I have my degree piled higher and deeper. I still want to know why *you* think he does it." Meyers shivered. Felt lost and must have looked it. Mulder sucked in one cheek, considered. "Start at the beginning, Meyers. Start with the first body." 

"The earliest one or the first one we found?" 

"Which helps you more?" Soft voice, and the lights from the screen were an amber highlight along his cheekbone and jaw, a tiny gleam across one eye. 

"The first found." Finally, firm ground. "It's the first time we have an influence we can absolutely identify if his behavior changes." 

Spooky nodded. "And that was Christopher Raintree. Details." 

"They found him in Ponca City. Asphyxiated and left in a crucifixion position. Um, no signs of recent molestation, but indications of long-term abuse. Anal trauma. The coroner found a poem, but didn't keep it." 

Spooky nodded again, led him through the details of each death they'd found. As he reached Erika he had to include the FBI releases in his timeline. Brought it up to the present, with Michael Weaverbird. 

"All right, those are the outlines of the deaths. The bare facts. What do they tell you, Meyers?" He had to know everything Meyers could say. 

"He. . . he doesn't molest them. There is usually a week or two between their abductions and their deaths. The killings are relatively painless. The mutilation is post mortem." 

"The symbolism of the mutilation?" 

Meyers swallowed again. He had hated Socratic method when he was in school. "I. . . I agree with your evaluation. I read it and the symbolism is biblical and sexual. He either displays them in positions of Christian violence, or he damages the body in a manner related to the abuse suffered." 

"And the poetry?" Spooky's head was tilted, expression mild and questioning. 

"I'm not really sure. . . I . . . We don't study a lot of poetry in criminology classes." 

"What do you know about Eliot?" He could have been asking about the weather. 

"Um. English poet, wrote in the thirties, around the same time as Yeats. Um. Lots of obscure references. He was Catholic. His wife was a nymphomaniac." 

"That's open to debate." Mulder's smile caught the same amber light that reflected in his glazed eyes. "He was born in America. His grandfather founded Washington University in St. Louis." 

"He was from St. Louis?" 

"No. He was raised Protestant. He graduated from Harvard. He was an Anglophile, erudite. He became an English citizen. You're right that he wrote in the thirties. He converted to Catholicism late, in his fifties. He wrote the Four Quartets after his conversion. The poems before that. . . have a lost, searching aspect. The Quartets are challenging, but they reflect a knowledge of a peace to be found through faith." 

"Loss. . . and faith and peace." 

"The still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless." 

Meyers listened to the soft, dark voice. Nodded. "A paradox. How can something be both?" 

"What does the flesh mean? What's the symbolism?" 

"Sin. The sins of. . . the flesh are sexual?" He wracked his brain for recollections of Catholic and Baptist friends and problems that had seemed small compared to vandalized synagogues. "And adults commit the sins of the flesh." 

"Sex and death. And he takes the children touched by the sins of the flesh." Mulder's voice was certain, coaxing. Leading Meyers through arguments he'd long since understood. Paths the younger man had not really thought through, leaving them for the experts in madness. 

"How does he find them?" 

"You had us search the records at Social Services. . . ?" 

"But he's been on the road. Finding these children. Killing them." 

"So he found them before a certain date? And after a date. . . " Meyers nodded. "But he's not choosing them for just any abuse, he's taking kids who were beaten or raped. . . " Meyers stared into glazed eyes. "How did he know?" 

Mulder's glazed eyes stared back. Long, slow blink. 

A very soft whisper, horrified now. "How do you know?" 

Mulder looked back at his computer. Meyers saw his throat work. Felt a chill twist in his guts and looked away, finding his own report. And tried to tell himself he hadn't just looked over the edge of an abyss and into darkness that might never end. 

So I assumed a double part, and cried And heard another's voice cry: 'What! are *you* here?' Although we were not. I was still the same, Knowing myself yet being someone other - 

I sit on a warm, vinyl seat. The car smells like vanilla, and I eat ice cream whenever I want. I will go to Jesus but I will play until I do. And Jesus will take the little children. 

Too strange to each other for misunderstanding, In concord at this intersection time Of meeting nowhere, no before and after, We trod the pavement in a dead patrol. I said: 'The wonder that I feel is easy, Yet ease is cause of wonder. Therefore speak; I may not comprehend, may not remember.' 

The little children must be saved. They must return to their creator before their souls are violated further. The sinners will reap as they have sown and the call of the resurrection shall not fall upon their ears. The child comes to know peace and accept the love his Creator, and his time will be upon him. 

There are three conditions which often look alike Yet differ completely, flourish in the same hedgerow: Attachment to self and to things and to persons, detachment From self and from things and from persons; and, growing between them, indifference Which resembles the others as death resembles life, Being between two lives - unflowering, between The live and the dead nettle. This is the use of memory: 

Sin is Behovely, but All shall be well, and All manner of thing shall be well. 

We have taken from the defeated What they had to leave to us - a symbol: A symbol perfected in death. And all shall be well and All manner of thing shall be well By the purification of the motive In the ground of our beseeching. 

The symbolism of the victims has moved from the spiritual to blunt messages of physical manipulation. Children are portrayed as sexual toys - their value removed by destruction of their sexual organs. Ericka Jones was prepared as food for law enforcement and publicity. The radical change of symbolism from religious or related to specific abuse to more obvious and animal fodder for societal response patterns marks a shift of imagery from personal to global. The symbolism of a child murdered and left as garbage, fertilizing the staples of modern animal needs like food or elimination reinforces this assessment. I anticipate the next victim will continue this trend of social commentary rather than personal or religious symbolism. A return to sexual imagery, but in a global rather than a personal aspect, is highly probable. 

Who then devised the torment? Love. Love is the unfamiliar Name Behind the hands that wove The intolerable shirt of flame Which human power cannot remove. We only live, only suspire Consumed by either fire. . . or fire. . . 

"Fire." Meyers looked up again, heart beating fast, fearing now where Spooky might lead him. The other man paused, hands over the keyboard. "Fire. . . " His voice was hoarse. "He'll. . . he'll burn him." He swallowed. Pulled away from his computer in quick, jerky moves, rolling off the bed so fast he almost fell on legs full of pins and needles. He caught himself and nearly ran into the bathroom. 

Continued in part 17................ 

=========================================================================== 

From: livengoo@tiac.net Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 17/41 NC-17 Date: 6 Feb 1996 05:59:08 GMT 

Oklahoma (Part 17/41) By Amperage and Livengoo Copyright October, 1995 

International Readers: No third season spoilers Rating: NC-17 for language and violence 

Fox Mulder and the X-Files are the creation and intellectual property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting. The FBI is the property of the US Government. Oklahoma and Louisiana and Texas belong to exactly who you think they'd belong to, and everything else belongs to Amperage and Livengoo. 

_________________ 

Meyers lunged out of his chair, felt the trill of fear as he lost sight of Mulder for even the moment it took to cut around the bed, then heard the water run. Spooky hadn't closed the door, hadn't bothered. The water was running full-blast and he had his hands buried in the stream, splashing his face, his whole head. Sobbing. Meyers stopped at the door, pale, looking nervously back at the table where Rodriguez had left Dramamine. 

"Fire. Meyers, he'll use fire. 

"The one discharge from sin and error the only hope or else despair lies in the choice of pyre or pyre to be redeemed from fire by . . .fire." Spooky looked up at him, face dripping and slick with water, hair matted dark. And his eyes were as dark. "Fire." Meyers nodded, didn't know what else to do. 

"C'mon. Spooky, tell me what you're talking about. . . " 

Mulder stared at him. "I couldn't move, Meyers. It was burning, and I was cold. I was safe where it was cold. . . " His voice was thin and small. Meyers reached for him, slowly, so slowly, and pulled very gently. 

"C'mon." Just like dad, and loud noises. This he knew. This wasn't voices and spirits, just fear. Fox Mulder followed him, talking about fire and cold. Meyers turned for only the time it took to get water, pills, and handed them to Mulder. 

"I don't. . . If I'm not awake I won't know when it starts. I'll be trapped. . . " 

"You promised, Mulder. You said you'd take them. You promised Rodriguez, promised Sam. . . " 

"Sam? Sam wants me to take these?" He stared at the pills, baffled. "But she's gone. . ." 

"She's gone. Sam wants you to take them. . . " He didn't know why the name worked, but he could see that it did. Mulder stared back at him, chewing on the inside of his cheek. 

"Sam's gone, Meyers. He'll burn Michael. He'll do it soon, but not yet. We have to get there. . . the next one will be a girl. It's time for a girl again." His voice was lower, not the thin, terrified voice when he'd spoken of fire. He was burying that fear again. Deep. Meyers closed his hand around the pills, pushed it towards him. 

"You promised Sam. You said you'd take these. Don't lie about this, Mulder." He held his breath and waited. Spooky finally shut his eyes, face pulled in a flicker of. . . pain? He swallowed them fast. 

Meyers left him sitting at the table. He couldn't bring himself to read what Spooky'd written. He was afraid of what he'd find. He saved it and booted down and put the machine back. Mulder watched him, wide eyes, and very dark. Meyers stared back and suddenly felt old and tired, looking into a smooth, pale face that hid everything he'd never thought he'd know. It took more than half an hour, and it may have been Miami Vice rather than the pills that left Spooky sprawled again, in dreams. Meyers looked at him, but closed eyes gave no hint of empty space and places a kid from Miami had ventured only on paper, in the cold, crisp words that told of pain and the things man did to man. 

 

 

Sam ran his hands over his face, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes. He'd scrubbed and scrubbed, but the smell of death still hung with him, under his nails, in his mind. Three months in the ground. Death did not frighten him, but it's pall still oppressed. 

Averman was sitting at the table, holding the computer Meyers had handed him, wishing he could wait for day to read what it held. The dead of night, he smiled grimly. He'd seen the dead of night already. It was the quick that scared him. He took a deep breath and flipped the catches, opened the cool, modern toy. Booted up and brought up the directory. Looked for the marks of old, old things left in traceries of magnetic patterns, flowing electricity. 

Meyers had told them in rushed, nervous words about following the first steps into the dark. Had told them about reviewing with Spooky and about Eliot. God, two of them now, talking about Eliot. And fire and cold. He braced himself and opened the files the kid had written. Rodriguez looked up to watch him, hair a wreck from sweat and the nervous tracks of his hands. Listened to the printer run, and took the sheets as Averman handed them over. 

These took less time to read. Sam sat there, staring at the wall, pages in his hands. Francis was sleeping in the next room and couldn't explain, and Sam didn't want to wake him. He feared what his friend would say. The pages were smudged and rippled when he finally put them down. He heard a low moan in the next room, wasn't surprised. The Dramamine couldn't hold him as long now. Sam gathered the part of himself that was a doctor, and went to look for Marion, stopping in the door to look at the empty bed. 

The sound of fists hitting the table brought Sam whipping around, heart slamming under his ribs. Even knowing he had to be there, the sound was shocking. Marion slammed his tightly balled fists onto the table again. His eyes were screwed shut, but he didn't need to look. 

"You took it." Sam stood there, silent. Felt Averman in the doorway behind him, knew the AIC was tensed back there. "You took my fucking computer." Francis opened his eyes, drew a deep, noisy breath. "You mother-fucking sons of bitches, you just don't have the right." He was swinging out from around the table now, advancing on Frito, eyes still glazed with drugs and sleep, a flush riding high on his cheekbones, but the rest of his face was white-pale. 

"Those were personal notes. I write official reports for a reason." He was right on top of Sam now, tight fist lightly tapping on Rodriguez' sternum, slowly edging him backwards. Averman had edged around to the side, ready to restrain Spooky. "You. Have. No. Fucking. Right. To take my personal notes, read my *personal* notes. 

"Francis. . ." 

"Don't 'Francis' me. Don't even dare." The pathologist was backed up against the bureau. He kept his hands low, minimizing any threat. When Averman met his eyes past Mulder's shoulder, Sam gave a little shake to his head. Mulder saw it. Spun on his heel, hands up and clawed, almost shaking. Averman didn't back down when Mulder got in his face. 

"I talked to your fucking shrink. I took the fucking pills and shots and naps and. . . " His voice was spiraling. A shrill edge grated on Sam's nerves. 

"Calm down, Agent." The words were soft, posture neutral. Marion froze, stood there shaking, holding a rage he couldn't unleash on men who made no move against him. 

"Why? Why can't you just. . . let me deal with this?" His voice was suddenly soft, thin. "I've dealt with it up until now. Just leave me alone. Please. Leave me alone." Still trembling. "Averman, they don't even take a murderer's journal without a subpoena. Not until he's convicted. You don't. . . you aren't. . . " Sam could see him bite his lip, let up before he broke the skin. Averman's hands came up a little. Mulder stepped back, out of reach, fearing comfort or restraint. His t-shirt was stained with fresh sweat. His bare feet were silent on the carpet when he turned, scooped up his sneakers and strode to the door. 

Sam was there ahead of him. Francis stopped. His face was expressionless. Sam swallowed. "Francis, please don't make us. . . " 

"What? Arrest me? Commit me? You said you wouldn't. . . " He was whispering. "I'm a legal adult. I have rights. I know. . . I know what's real, Frito. I do. I just know other things, too. Please don't do this to me." 

Sam closed his eyes, prayed. Tia Maria, watch over him. Mary, Madre de Dios, let me be doing the right thing. "Francis, you still need to rest. You had. . . you are. . ." Mulder watched him, no expression on his face, but a terrifying sense of loss in his eyes, dilated in the shadows. Averman stayed back, letting Sam find the way to deal with this. "You promised us, Francis. You said you'd do what we asked. You told me. You promised." 

"You'll hold me prisoner with that?" Ironic, bitter inflection. 

"You scare me, my friend." Sam stepped forward, and now he drove Mulder back in front of him. "You see visions, Marion. You speak of your sister, but cannot remember. You see ghosts in old women. You know things you cannot know." Mulder opened his mouth, Sam could see the protest in his face. "Things you *can not* know. Yes, you were right. You were right about the girl and right about Michael. Explain to me how you could know this. I want to believe there's a way you could know this. I want to believe. . . " And he did. Although it made madness of so much, something in him. . . remembered the priests and incense. And wanted to believe. 

He could see Mulder swallow. Could feel the frustrated, choked sense of him. 

"Sit down and explain it to me Francis. Please." Sam looked up at Averman, silently asking him to go get the pages of hell and pain that Mulder had spilled from his fingers that night. Turned back to Mulder, and his fragile, shaky control. Averman slipped the sheets past Sam's shoulder and settled into a chair to wait. 

His own fears were in delicate check, eyes fixed on Francis, trying to bridge the distance and find the friend under all the fear, and pain, and mystery. Handed his notes back to him. 

"Tell me." 

Mulder stared. He had told Sam something. Something to keep himself out of a hospital. And now Sam was taking him up on it. Do you want to talk or do you want Haldol? Do you want to make sense or do you want to rant and rage and scream until we have no other choices left? 

Mulder closed his eyes. "Fire is a purification. It is the cleansing. It is also the symbol of. . ." Mulder swallowed. "At Pentecost, there were seventy-two followers of Christ in the upper room. They . . .the Holy Spirit came down and crowned their heads in rings of fire and they knew God's Word, had it in their hearts. The Evangelicals. . ." Mulder made an emphasis out of his hands, as though it were hard to keep the explanations straight to an audience that did not follow his references. "Evangelical Christian groups vary on what this means. Some say it's like a special thing given to those who will prophesy or preach in worship. Some say -- this is the mainline view -- that the Holy Spirit came down at that point. And that it lives on in all those who have been saved. Some denominations believe the Holy Spirit cannot leave you because once you are saved you can never be unsaved. Others think that it can if you sin again. That you become unsaved. Others, like I said, don't equate it with salvation so the spirit comes and goes as it will. . ." Mulder trailed, aware suddenly that he had lost his audience. 

"Before that, fire was also a symbol of God -- the burning bush that was not consumed. God was a pillar of fire at night, leading the Israelites to the promised land. Fire was used in all the sacrifices and altars. It was also a form of light in darkness, which is a symbol of Christ." 

"Mostly though, Eliot refers to the pentecostal fire. Eliot understood it in a transcendent way. . .as God's communication to us. . .it doesn't come and go because God doesn't come and go. . .it is the spirit. . .it is. . .the transcendence. And if we do not choose the fire of the dove -- the dove is the symbol of the Holy Spirit -- remember the dove came down to Christ when John baptized him? Then we choose the fire of hell. So we have the choice of either fire or fire." 

Mulder felt a flutter of fear, felt something spin around in his mind. "You see now, somehow, he knows he's got at least one watcher who understands him. He started killing with purely personal goals. Send the hurt children to Jesus. But then he realized he could teach us something. So then he got our attention and he sent his message out to the masses. Now he's still preaching to the masses, but he knows he's got some watchers who understand his message. Like a missionary. He sends the message out to the masses, and any whose. . ." Mulder paused. ". . .any whose hearts are softened, are preached to more intensely." 

"He's going with two different beliefs, drawn from his Eliot. The first one is that the Holy Ghost comes down," Mulder made a movement from his head to his chest with one hand, making a drawing movement fingers wide at top, touching at bottom, "and fills the person and that person is saved. The second is that when the Holy Spirit comes to a person, that person," the hand was open, the palm went outwards from his own chest to the room around him, "can prophesy. Can know things because the Holy Spirit tells it to him. Can transcend and become part of eternal." 

No Eliot. He was trying, for once, to explain the Eliot to them both. To explain Why. 

"What did you see after I was unconscious?" Mulder's voice was soft, but terribly sharp. "What did you see? Who came? Meyers said Sam thought it was the BVM. Who came? Who did you see?" 

Sam swallowed, stared at Averman. "This woman came. She said you were sick. She said you were prophesying. She said she was the mother of the man who owned the revival tent," Sam replied before Averman spoke. "I don't know what she was, but she knew you like she'd known you from the day you were born." 

"She said *I* was sick?" 

Sam nodded. "She said. . .you started moaning and she said she loved you like Samantha did." 

Mulder's head jerked up. He stared at Sam. "I don't know," Sam replied. "I don't know what she knew or how." He put his hands up in an "I'm innocent" gesture. 

Averman looked as though he was upset. "She was a charismatic. You know they believe in tongues and all that horseshit." 

Mulder stared at Averman. "Be not unbelieving, but believing, because you have seen have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed." 

Averman blinked back. Stared at Mulder. "The devil may quote scripture for his own purposes." 

Mulder smiled. 

"How can you say that when you don't believe in God?" Averman questioned. "How can you ask me to believe in what you don't?" 

Mulder shrugged. "I don't know," he said quietly, finally. He stared numbly at his hands. "I hate fire. I fucking hate fire. He doesn't know that or he wouldn't be using fire." The voice was very soft. 

Averman shifted over to where Mulder sat, got close. "What are you saying?" 

Mulder looked up. "Nothing. Nothing." His face was pale. He swallowed. Looked around. "What happened, besides the smell of rotting flesh?" 

"Not much. We'll have everything ready by in the morning. It was an adult. A male caucasian. It looks like a strangulation. Just like you said." 

Mulder accepted this quietly. 

 

 

Mulder let himself into bed, left the bathroom light on. Left the lamp beside his bed on. Tried not think. Pretended things to himself. He knew, and he knew it was like being led as a lamb to the slaughter. He knew Elijah did not know or Elijah would not do this. 

Fox was one of Elijah's children now. Elijah did not hurt the children intentionally. 

But he was still quiet, still went to bed as he was told, though it felt like going to bed the night before you were led out for an execution. A strange sense of calm, of being someone else, somewhere else. It was his body and he was there, but he did not feel it. It was not him and yet it was. 

 

 

Sam put his face against the pillow. Too many bodies, no real answers. Too many children. Fox Mulder on the other side of a terribly thin wall, slipping down into sleep like it was some kind of river filled with monsters who swarmed under the surface waiting for his kicking feet. He was tired and sleepy and the convolutions of Mulder's brain still frightened him. Fire. To be crowned with either Fire or Fire. The dark dove of the flickering tongue. Madre de Dios, Spooky had him saying Eliot now too. Like it was some short prayer to a saint before you went to sleep. He fell into sleep, knowing that he would have to wake and face the dead. 

 

 

Averman swallowed the last of his nightcap, considered the reports, considered Mulder's profile. The best are soon gone, he thought softly. Fox Mulder was not, right now, a very likable individual, but Rodriguez thought he was a good person. Meyers had a serious hard on for him. Averman pulled Meyers report from the pile. It was pretty evident what Meyers and Mulder had gotten done together, although you had to admit it *was* Meyers' work. But then he'd stride into a room and you just wanted to slap him for being a general cocky asshole. When this case was over, there was no way the old Fox Spooky Mulder would ever come back. That creature was an amalgam of fears and horrors that had never come to a head. 

Averman thought of his own children. He remembered the one time he'd pulled the belt out of its loops, when his son had come home with all F's in the first grade. The look of horror and the realization that he could inflict such horror on another being and nothing would be said, the remembrance of horror when his father hit him. He hadn't hit his son and he had never, ever thought about belting his kids again. He didn't understand how men could do that and stare at the panicked faces of their children and not be moved. 

They'd pulled Christopher and sent him to a private school where research was being done. Told Averman it was something they were beginning to get a handle on it. Christopher reversed letters. They called it dyslexia. You heard about it on the news now and every pissant little school district dealt with it. But in 74, it was a thing only liberals talked about. You just hit them when they couldn't. Hit them hard to knock some sense into them. 

How could a man hit a child, an utterly defenseless child, until, when the child grew up, he heard voices and huddled in bathrooms crying, until people around him whispered words about commitment and hospitals? How could a man stare at an innocent child, all baby fat and dimples and grins and feel his dick grow hard? How could he do things to that child, hearing the screams and the pain? 

Averman pressed his face against the glass. What a world we have created, he thought tiredly. 

 

 

Walking through the abandoned Cathedral. Water and fire succeed the town, the pasture and the weed. Water and fire deride the sacrifice that we denied. Water and fire shall rot The marred foundations we forgot, Of sanctuary and choir. This is the death of water and fire. 

Bright stars through the fallen beams, clear and sharp. Water squished in the grass under his feet. This place had burned. Had burned and. . . 

"FOX!" He turned. 

There was only emptiness and silence in the char blackened timbers and the brittle summer green that grew. 

Saw the orange and the yellow. The red of coals and the white ash fall. 

The only hope or else despair Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre-- To be redeemed from fire by fire. 

Heat and moldering ash and he stood with the smell in his hair, the embers in his face. His father telling him that this is how London smelled when he was there. Watching and digging through the ash for things the flame forgot. 

We live, only suspire Consumed by either fire or fire. 

Hot and his hands were burnt. Stare and someone grabs you. And you remember watching the fire, feeling the sear of heat along your face and the blisters breaking out. Fire is alive it can swallow and it can roll, billow like a sail, wave like a child. 

The Cathedral was cold. 

He moved to the front, out of the nave and into the crossing, standing on ruined mosaics. A simple angled maze. The devil cannot follow corners. The devil cannot move in straight lines because the devil is a snake. His feet in their heavy wingtips crushed brittle grass, growing between the tiny tiles. The grass crumbled into waterlogged mush. The tiles skittered and pushed down into the foundation. A very black night. The sky was dark and palpable. You could touch the darkness, feel the radiation of the passing celestial spheres. Glanced at the transepts and the fallen saints who had rested there. Forward. Into the choir, the fallen pews, collapsed and decayed, wood rills along their edges, telling how long the rot had survived. 

The presbytery had fallen in, and the gold leaf was gone. He stood quietly, hands deep inside the trench coat. Wondering. 

A movement in the back, in the dark. He watched the figure turn. The first met stranger. 

In concord at this intersection time. 

He watched and saw the figure of a boy, standing in the doorway. And understood. 

Whatever we inherit from the fortunate We have taken from the defeated What they had to leave us--a symbol: A symbol perfected in death. And all shall be well and All manner of thing shall be well By the purification of the motive In the ground of our beseeching. 

He strode back through the chapel, ignoring the spongy wood, the places in the crossing where the floor had fallen through and ancient kings stared up from their hallows. 

Michael? Elijah? 

Fox? 

Continued in part 18.............. 

=========================================================================== 

From: livengoo@tiac.net Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW: Oklahoma 18/41 NC-17 Date: 8 Feb 1996 06:23:53 GMT 

Oklahoma (Part 18/41) By Amperage and Livengoo Copyright October, 1995 

International Readers: No third season spoilers Rating: NC-17 for language and violence 

Fox Mulder and the X-Files are the creation and intellectual property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting. The FBI is the property of the US Government. Oklahoma and Louisiana and Texas belong to exactly who you think they'd belong to, and everything else belongs to Amperage and Livengoo. 

Special thanks to Rodent, the editing goddess. Rodent - I have a shrine to good editors. - Goo ____________________ 

Mulder woke with a start, unable to force breath into his lungs, feeling the crackling, the burning, watching the yellow tongue. It was hot. Hot and he could not escape it, could not run. Hot and the flame of incandescent terror assaulted him in waves of fear. 

He found the bathroom by main instinct, found the blue knob, blue, the color of God. Twisted and the water fell over him, hard and cold and the flames were burning, crackling and twisting and rising up in arching tantamount swells. Smoke and fire and the ring of sharp white ash. Blisters and burns. 

He pulled off his clothes, sobbing, feeling the bile and the Gatorade gushing from his mouth. Oh God it was hot. It was hot and he was. . .burning. . . 

Into the crowned knot of fire And the fire and the rose are one. 

He leaned against the tiling naked, felt the tears, the tears were hot, his eyes. . .oh god, he could not think, his eyes were burning, were melting in their sockets. 

He closed his eyes and turned his face upwards, felt the water trickle and steam into his throat and nose. He breathed, felt his body choke. Coughed and sputtered and breathed again. Felt his heel slip on the water, falling, huddling against the cool ceramic, away from the heat. 

Blazing and burning. A ritual pyre. Michael sleeps and 

The chill ascends from feet to knees The fever sings in mental wires If to be warmed, then I must freeze And quake in frigid purgatorial fires Of which the flame is roses and the smoke is briars. 

Jesus loves the little children. All the children of the world. 

Filled his mouth with water, spat it out when it became warm. Cold water. 

 

 

Sam blinked. Nothing. Go back to sleep. You're imagining things. 

Yeah, yeah, I'm starting at shadows, going to be as bad as Mulder. . . 

He rolled over. It was raining. No. 

Sorry son of a bitch. Up already? It was only 5:30. Didn't the mutherfucker ever need sleep? Had he slipped out so quietly no one heard him go for a run? 

Oh hell. 

Sam debated just closing his eyes and going back to sleep. Debated forgetting that he ever heard the shower. 

Well shit.


	2. Oklahoma 2/3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Good times, huh?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2017 quick note - thank you to the sharp eyed fans who read this and realized a chunk was missing! I've spent hours on the way back machine and tracked down what I think is a source for the missing chunks, and edited them in. If you spot more missing bits, let me know and I'll search. - Gooligan

The door was open, but no steam billowed out. No heat. Water was splattering the carpet. Sam frowned, edged over to the bathtub. 

Oh Fuck. 

Marion was asleep under the shower. Cold water, icy, frigid cold water. Asleep and it looked like he'd been that way a long time, sitting under the water. Head against the soap dish, legs at odd angles, discarded clothes a heavy, waterlogged mess. Sam turned off the water wondering what the fuck had happened here. 

At the disappearance of the current, Francis' head bolted up, startled, frightened. Terrified. Then he relaxed. Deep breath. Shivered. Sam waited quietly. Francis stared at him. Shivered, a full body, uncontrollable shiver. Again. Sam put his hand against Mulder's skin. Clammy and water wrinkled. Worse than clammy. Outright cold. He found the towels on the rack. Three of them. One around Mulder's shoulders, one at his lap. 

"He burned him tonight, Frito." The voice was very quiet. 

Sam nodded. "Come on," he said, not caring about wondering what was being said. "Let's get you out of the water." 

 

 

Five short steps, maybe ten, and then he could go back to bed. Marion had been sleeping in ice water, God knows a warm bed should lull him right off. But he shivered harder suddenly, the motion sharp against the arm Sam had around his back to guide him. All the long muscles tensed and he dragged Sam to a stop. 

Sam looked up at him. Marion wasn't meeting his eyes, was staring at the bed, blinking rapidly. Madre de Dios. Puta. Merde. Fluent in three languages and he should be able to find enough words to describe what he thought right then, with the air dragging in his lungs and a body on the table a few short hours away. 

"Please don't fuck with me, Marion. It's too late for this shit. . . " 

Francis' eyes had come down to look at him, and the pathologist shivered. Looked through him. "He burned him, Frito." 

"That's what you said, now can you. . . " 

"You don't believe me." The hand on his arm felt odd. Wet and. . . Sam frowned. Slowly reached over to take his wrist, turn the hand with the palm facing up. And swallowed. 

 

 

The ringing phone slapped Averman's ears and forced him from a deep, short sleep. 5:30. Christ. 

"Nng. Averman here." 

"Sir, you asked to be informed of anomalous homicides. . . " 

"Mmhmm. Jesus, man. I sure as hell hope you're not calling with a drive-by." Tactless. He kicked himself, but god, he was so tired. 

"We have a body recovered in an arson case, sir. Looks like a child." Averman's bloodshot eyes were abruptly staring at the swirled plaster that shone faintly in the light from the parking lot. 

"Give me what you've got." 

 

 

"How did you get these, Marion?" Very soft, gentle voice. His finger carefully skimmed over the white, blistered surface of Mulder's palm. Grabbed the other wrist and both were blistered. Soft, white blisters, and Mulder flinched when he touched them. 

"Don't make me go to sleep, Frito. Please. I don't want to go back there." Rational, calm. Then much softer. "I'm afraid." 

Frito stared back up at him. "Where did you get these?" Not from scalding. The flesh was red. They looked like burns. . . But to get burns like that from a shower? 

"I picked something up. In the cathedral." 

"Francis. . . " Frito leaned over and turned on the light to look more closely. The blisters were still there. All over his palms, but none on the sides or backs of his hands. If he'd done this with the hot water, they'd be messier, spread further. The shower head itself couldn't get this hot, surely or, if it did, would make a pattern. He left Francis and went to look at it. 

Narrow little nozzle that Francis' hand would wrap around. That didn't make those burns. Nothing in here was large enough to leave that even coat of blisters. They would have differentiations. This didn't make sense. 

Mulder was standing behind him in the door. He had his robe around him now, and was still shivering. Slowly and deliberately, he reached up and wrapped his hand around the shower nozzle. "I'd have had to burn my hand an inch at a time on this, Frito. I didn't. I didn't hurt myself. I was in the fire." 

 

 

"Are you sure it was arson?" 

"We found definite evidence of accelerants. Gasoline mainly." 

"Any chance your perp is the victim?" 

"I. . . if it's suicide it's pretty strange. We'd feel better if you took a look at it." 

"Jesus Christ." If the locals were asking for the feds to drop by for coffee and donuts, then this one had to be pretty strange. 

"More or less." 

 

 

"Marion. There's no fire. There's nothing here." Sam could hear the frustration crackle in his voice, the fear of what he'd hear. 

"Marion smiled, brittle. "In the cathedral. I tried to tell you. He burned Michael tonight. And he'll take the next one tomorrow. . . the day after. Soon. I was there. There's a mosaic in the nave." 

"Marion." Sam ran his hands through his hair, bit back a curse and a sob and a plea to let him sleep. "Marion. I need sleep. You need sleep. . ." God, Francis was backing away, face pale even though he wasn't shivering so badly. 

"Please, Sam. . . .please. Please don't make me sleep again. I don't want to go back." He had the bed between them. Sam swallowed, felt the ache in his throat, the pain in his shoulders when he pulled himself upright. His feet were swollen from hours of standing, working with the extraction team. His knees, his back. . . He had to think of the motions to breathe and Francis was standing there, seeking barriers, seeking any escape for even an instant. 

"Listen to me. I want you to take more Haldol. . . " Mulder's face twisted, teeth showing on his lower lip, eyes shut tight then snapped open as though he couldn't stand that much dark. "You'll sleep hard, you won't dream as much. . . " 

"If I go to sleep I'll go back." Voice a desperate whisper. "Don't make me go back. I don't want to fight you and I don't want to run. But he saw me tonight." 

"You were asleep in a fucking tub full of ice-fucking-water!" He could see that Francis startled at the shout. Drew a shaky breath and balled his fists. 

 

 

Averman heard the shout, knocked fast and hard. 

"Rodriguez! Rodriguez, what's going on? You okay?" No sound for a moment. The bolts twisted back and Frito was staring up at him, dark eyes above smudged bruises of lower lids. Grim, pale mouth. Averman looked past him at Mulder, around on the far side of the bed and almost in the corner. He felt his mouth open on a comment, but held it. Waited for screams, or Eliot or God-knew-what. Mulder watched him with still eyes, tracking and silent. He looked back to Rodriguez. 

"We got an odd one in Shawnee. The locals want us out there." 

"To the cathedral." Mulder's voice. Rodriguez' eyes squeezed tight shut. The doctor let his head and shoulders slump. "He burned him in the cathedral. They found him on the altar. Michael slept until he died and the fire took him." He could see the pale man swallow across the room. 

"What happened, Sam?" He kept his eyes on Mulder. 

"I woke up. He. . . he was in the tub, in ice water, asleep." The words were gasped out on choked breaths. Rodriguez had let his head loll against the door, using the wood to hold himself up. 

"I was burning. I was with him when he died and it was burning. Elijah didn't know." 

Sam's lashes were dark and his face was tight with the fury of exhaustion and despair. "He has blisters on his palms. Even coat on both hands. Fuck me if I can figure out how. . . all I can make of it is psychosomatic damage." 

Averman looked from Rodriguez to Mulder. Shivered. 

"You're going there. He's waiting for you. Please. . . " Mulder's voice choked off. Sam looked back over his shoulder. 

"We can get Meyers up and I'll hit him with enough Haldol. . . " 

"Please don't make me sleep." The words were bitten off fast and hard. "Let me. . . let me see this site." 

Rodriguez rounded, shoulders gathered and fists tensed again. "You said you were scared of the fire. Hated the fucking fire, that's exactly what you said. . . " Sam caught himself trembling. Shut his eyes. Lowered his voice. "Mulder, why do you want to do this?" Because you won't have to sleep? The thought ran through three sets of eyes at once. 

Mulder nodded slowly. "That. And I need to be close to where he was. I need to. . . see what he saw, smell it, walk there." Distracted from distraction by distraction. 

"I don't know as that's a good idea, Mulder." Averman's voice was soft, more controlled than Sam had been able to manage. 

 

 

Listening to them argue to drug him back where men and bits of paper, whirled by the cold wind that blows before and after time would take him all unknowing and undefended to Elijah. To the fire. Wind in and out of unwholesome lungs, into the faded air. 

"We've never been so close. . . " They looked at him. "He's taking us to the heart of it, Averman. Do you see it Frito? 

'Your building not fitly framed together, you sit ashamed and wonder whether and how you may be builded together for a habitation of GOD in the Spirit, the Spirit which moved on the face of the waters like a lantern set on the back of a tortoise.' 

"Fire or fire. He redeemed the child in the abandoned house of worship. Burned the abandoned house of the soul in the abandoned house of god." 

"Mulder." Averman had stepped in and was moving slowly and carefully towards the young man. "It's all right, we believe you. You saw it burn. . . " He swallowed, felt fear in his chest. He did believe him, believed he'd seen, could see the marks on his hands, and feared. "This is a crime site, and not safe. You. . . you're not thinking so clearly right now. You don't need to be there. Just let us help you get calmed down. We'll bring the reports." God, if he was so scared of fire that was the last place Averman wanted him. He could hear Rodriguez getting what he needed in the next room. Was grateful that Mulder wasn't freaking out, wasn't violent or sobbing. His eyes were dilated, and he gestured, trying to draw Averman into whatever he was arguing, but he didn't have time for this. 

Frito had another fucking needle ready. His skin crawled at the memory of the sharp sting and the cold drug creeping into his system and smothering him. 

"No Eliot. I don't care. Let me see the site, please, Averman!" Mulder backed into the corner by the bed, caged by the two of them. If he fought, they'd call him hostile and Guiterriez would have him. If he slept Elijah would have him. "Please. . . " 

Not for me the ultimate vision. Grant me thy peace. 

"It's not so much. . . " 

I am tired with my own life and the lives of those after me, I am dying in my own death and the deaths of those after me. 

Let thy servant depart, Having seen thy salvation. 

What images return Oh my sister. 

Mulder was crying, quiet tears from under his eyelids. He felt Averman's arms around him in a rough embrace like he was a child, like he would fight hard, grabbing his wrists, pulling to the bed. "Shh. . .it won't hurt long. . .shh." Averman's voice, rough, the whisper of a coarse voice, softened. The voice Averman's children must have heard when they woke from nightmares. It was a voice like his father's, stroking his forehead when he was in pain, telling him it would be all right, the voice when he had cried, not able to play Little League because of the damn cast, the patient voice. 

The needle stung like. . .fire. He felt the heat slide into his skin; he twisted, screamed. Felt Frito's hand. "Don't struggle." Sharp voice. 

"Shh. . .you're going to be all right. Shh. Calm down. . .Shh. . .it's going to be all right. . .shh. . ." The needle left, but the fire burned on, it spread, it danced in his veins, it held him hostage. 

"Fire." Mulder whispered. "Elijah danced around the fire when he was little. They built a fire on Halloween. His father didn't know. His mother laughed. His mother was British and she always lit a fire on Halloween, tossed herbs in it to appease nature. Salt turns it a lovely shade of blue. . .When the fire was low, the children jumped over the coals. A pretend sacrifice, another kind of baptism. . .the world was destroyed once by water. The second destruction will be of fire. . .The prophet Elijah called down fire to prove to the king that. . ." deep sobbing breath, "his God was the only true one. . ." The words became harder to say. 

"I know. You can tell us later. Shh." Averman let go. 

Quietly they put him into the bed. Meyers had his paperwork, his portable, a couple of books and a candy bar when he came in. He was still dressed casually. Averman nodded in approval. 

"Stay with him all day," Sam ordered. "He'll be out most of today." 

Averman turned to the short doctor. "You told him `it's not so much'?" he asked mildly. 

"It isn't, considering how much I wanted to give him," Sam replied drily. "But I don't want him coming back up for a while." He checked his watch. 6:10. Forty minutes? Had all of that only taken forty minutes? "We need some cortisone salve and gauze to wrap around his hands." 

"Any idea what happened?" Averman asked. 

"There's nothing in this room he could've done it on." A frown, shake of the head. "There are some reports in the literature of psychosomatic burns. . .I don't know. . ." a shrug, "I don't think it was intentional." 

Averman nodded. "I'm going to go get changed. You need to do the same. How long do you think you'll need?" 

Mulder mumbled something softly. They ignored him. 

"Hell if I know. I'm going to get dressed, find someplace and get him something for his hands," Sam said. He glanced at Averman. 

"Is that something that comes natural when you get a kid?" 

Averman smiled, shook his head. "Yeah. Yeah it does." 

 

 

He was so far away. Dry cotton was a sour mess on his tongue, and he couldn't swallow. Dry in his nose, his eyes. And cold, chilled cold. Someone with Frito's voice took his hands, smeared them and muffled them up tight and numb. When Mulder tried to move them a little, he felt bindings around them. Frito talked to him, to others. Told him things, but he was too far away to really hear them. He tried to tell that to them, but his words never made it back, and only his own ears heard them. 

There were strangers' voices, talking about things that made no sense. Mulder tried to remember the language but found he could not. Someone spoke in Meyers' voice and there were words. So hard. Something about television, something about sleep. He felt sleep waiting for him, in the dark, and he tried to talk to it, too. Tried to tell it to go away. He wasn't going to sleep. But it didn't hear him either. They left, for the case, left Meyers sitting with the Spooky. Awake, but somewhere lost within. Occasionally he mumbled, but the words were indistinct. 

The young man propped his feet on another chair and settled a pad of paper on his lap. God, this was going to be a long day. Write up finding the second body. Write up taking the extraction team out there. He sighed hopelessly. And Spooky was over there under the covers staring at nothing. 

 

 

Meyers tried to think. He'd never seen anyone on drugs so heavy they made you drool. Was quite sure he didn't want to go into psychiatry as a profession. He'd always wondered why the homeless people in DC went around muttering, and refused to take their drugs so they would be sane. Always thought it was because they wanted to stay on the dole. Fuck that. If Meyers had ever been so drugged that he just lay curled loosely fetal, staring at nothing, he probably would have negative feelings towards his meds too. It wasn't . . .it wasn't like Rodriguez and Averman had choices. He'd seen Mulder get manic, he'd seen Mulder prophesying. 

It wasn't pretty and it wasn't fun and it didn't leave you with much else to do, because Fox Mulder was hot shit, and he knew his stuff, no fucking doubt about that, but there were times he wasn't in control. 

Meyers sighed with frustration. Turned back to his paperwork. 

 

 

Baptist. The sign was large. Calvary Baptist Church. Welcome. Rodriguez picked his way through the rubble, watched the FBI agents swarm. He was tired. His feet hurt and he was going to have to look at another corpse. The smell of ash and water filled his nostrils. The site was still smoldering, more heat on top of searing heat. Rodriguez squinted, walked along, looked inside the doorway, past the yellow tape. There was a large man talking with Averman and the local Fire Chief. Rodriguez ducked the tape, walked into the foyer, which appeared to mostly have suffered water damage. Through one of three sets of swinging doors into the large sanctuary. Blonde pews, a high arching ceiling. Not really an altar. No exalted place dedicated to God. There was a clear acrylic podium with two microphones and a large open area, well-worn. A large open area behind that must be the Choir loft. Lots of seats in the semi circle of the auditorium. A balcony above him. It must have taken a lot of gasoline. 

"Hello?" A tall man, older. He'd once had acne. An expensive suit. The way he said it made it clear he thought Sam had no business here. "I'm Pastor Greer. And you would be?" 

"I'm Special Agent Rodriguez. You're the pastor?" 

"I'm the Minister of Finance." The man clasped his hands at crotch level, one hand folded over the other. He smiled in what he must have imagined was a trusting sort of way. Expensive wig. Darting eyes. 

"Oh. Sorry," Sam replied. Smiled. "You're Southern Baptist?" 

"No. We don't be-lieeeve in denominations. We belieeeve in Gahhhd's work." The stretching of syllables was annoying. "We belieeve that Gahhd does not-a want us confined to such. The Bap-tiists are tooo liberal in Pastor Porter's oh-pin-e-on." 

Southern Baptists too liberal? Ah. . .okay. What planet did this man live on, just exactly? 

Sam thought about Marion's profile. Golden opportunity. Let's see if he bites. "What is your church's position on homos?" 

"The Bihbull takes an ex-plic-it view of-a su-huch mah-ters. Homosexuality is an un-natchurall act-a. It is an abomination in the ey-us of Gahd." 

Sam nodded neutrally. "And what about AIDS?" 

"Natchurually we feel sohrry for those ah-flicted with that dread, dread dis-ease-a." He did not say anything else. 

Sam could guess the rest. But they're gay, they get what they deserve. It wasn't an uncommon opinion. 

"How much of your money goes towards missions?" 

"Oh. Yayhus. We have many, many miss-ssi-ions. We have a quite extensive-a television min-ist-uhre." 

Somehow Sam figured that one. He nodded. 

"Thank you for your time, Reverend." He extended a hand. The man took it and did not let go. 

"Hahve you-uh been sahvud Special Agent? Do you know Jaysus as your-uh personal Sav-ior?" 

Sam smiled, several rather cruel things passed through his mind. "Have you ever been audited?" he asked softly. 

The man released his hand. Sam strode out into the sunlight. 

Averman was leaning against a car. "I want you to know, not all Baptists make your dick crawl up your ass and hide." 

"I know." Sam grinned. "I think this one's pretty obvious." 

Averman nodded. "And think of the media exposure. They're already beginning to swoop. It's just going to get bigger." 

"I met their Pastor of Finance. I need a bath." 

Averman grinned. "Remember we play nice." 

"When do I get the body?" 

"When ever we get back." Averman glanced at Sam. "Why don't you just take a uniform and go over there now." 

Sam nodded, relieved. 

 

It was a pathetic charred thing that the Coroner showed Sam to. "He was dead before the fire ever got there," the old man said, taking a stool, putting his back against a cabinet. 

"You haven't done any work?" Sam asked, washing his hands, shaking out a gown. 

The Coroner, Dr. Robin Taylor, shook his head, grey-white hair moving. "I've been a physician for forty five years. You learn. He didn't struggle, so he had to be dead or drugged. The outer signs of an OD have been removed. The boy was bathed." 

Sam stared at the man. "You don't look over sixty." 

"Seventy next month," the man replied, digging through his pockets for something. Gum. He offered Rodriguez a stick. Wasn't surprised when it was refused. "You're native gentry aren't you?" 

Sam's eyes narrowed. "I'm of Spanish ancestry and my people have been here three hundred years, yes." 

"Figured. What does your father do?" 

"He's a cardiac surgeon." 

Taylor nodded as though this confirmed his suspicions. "I'm just as happy to let you have the poor thing. Indian, dirt poor I'd guess. I hate autopsying children." 

"Yeah." Sam pulled on gloves, went to the small blackened body. Michael. This little boy had been named Michael and the happiest days of his life had been spent with the man who was going to kill him. They would find pills in his poor stomach. They would find Eliot hidden in his body. Michael did not care anymore. 

Sam wondered if he really cared himself. 

The arms were drawn up like a boxer's, defensive and stiff. Legs bent. Brilliant light spilled down from the faceted, concave body of the lamp but was trapped and drunk by the charred surface. 

Sam paced around the burnt thing, reading sizes and observations into the recording equipment that would be the last testament of Michael Weaverbird. The child's body left greasy marks on the smooth, brushed metal of the examining table. 

. . . victim appears to be a child judging from the size and build. . . " Taylor listened as the crisp, unaccented voice read off a description. He knew Rodriguez had little doubt of the child's identity, but those speculations did not belong in an autopsy. Just the facts. 

 

The pavement burned against the soles of Averman's dress shoes. His pale gray, summer weight suit masked a shirt plastered to his back, his sides. The tie around his neck held his collar in itching contact with his neck, and his hair had long since grown dark and clumped with the drops that rolled down scalp and face, that made the earpieces of his glasses slippery. 

Door to door. Had a man and a child been seen in this neighborhood? Any strange cars? Anyone by the church? On and on, questions and questions. And Averman was reasonably sure that he already knew everything he could learn here. The FBI, however, taught a man to believe in the evidence of eyes, ears, mind. Not of a sad, lonely voice in the night that spoke of what it could not see. Averman kept asking. 

Continued in part 19............ 

=========================================================================== 

From: livengoo@tiac.net Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW: Oklahoma 19/41 NC-17 Date: 8 Feb 1996 06:26:55 GMT 

Oklahoma (Part 19/41) By Amperage and Livengoo Copyright October, 1995 

International Readers: No third season spoilers Rating: NC-17 for language and violence 

Fox Mulder and the X-Files are the creation and intellectual property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting. The FBI is the property of the US Government. Oklahoma and Louisiana and Texas belong to exactly who you think they'd belong to, and everything else belongs to Amperage and Livengoo. 

And thanks to those who have sent email feedback. I like email with the morning coffee before I go toil in the bowels of corporate America! Goo 

_____________________ 

Sleep was a vast, dark shape beneath him, calling and reaching to smother him. Mulder balled his fists and clung to what little pain he could find. The voices around him kept blurring. Sometimes light flickered at the edge of his vision, and he feared to blink, but the darkness was thick, and heavy, and huge, and he was very, very small. Frito had sent him to this, Averman had held him while his partner drove him down, into the dark, alone. 

No. Not alone. 

"NO!" 

We are children quickly tired: children who are up in the night and fall asleep as the rocket is fired; and the day is long for work or play. We tire of distraction or concentration, we sleep and are glad to sleep, Controlled by the rhythm of blood and the day and the night and the seasons. And we must extinguish the candle, put out the light and relight it; Forever must quench, forever relight the flame. 

 

Frito probed the mouth. Found paper. Stained, oily, and ragged. But it had been protected from the worst of the heat and, as he spread it between two plates of glass, he could see words. They would wait for later, but he already feared what they said. 

Rodriguez rolled the body one way, another, read his findings into the machine. They were few. Bodies did not want to burn, but enough heat would do the trick. Accelerants would do the trick. He spoke of indications of gasoline from deeper, unusual charring. >From the temperature Michael would have to have reached to become this wretched, flaking mass. When he tried to shift the arms so he could begin the abdominal incision, one broke. Frito bit his lip, shut his eyes tight. Heard a thin voice tell him about burning and had to hold his breath to quell the stab of pain and dread. 

". . . damage to the bronchial passages, esophagus and nasal tissues. . ." 

Taylor's jaw stopped, the wad of gum in a mass that pressed the side of his tongue. He felt the gag reflex and let his tongue drive the gum forward. He was shivering as Rodriguez' clinical voice rolled on for the recorder, describing what bright lights could show. Describing death by smoke inhaled. Taylor had prayed the child was dead before the fire could take him. Taylor had been wrong. 

 

Meyers rolled into another sit-up. His feet, hooked under the bed, hurt a little, but he did not want to fall asleep sitting there over his report. His candy bar was gone, but it wasn't time for lunch. The only sounds were the television and the occasional low mumble from the Spooky. 

Meyers swallowed a sour taste, glanced over when he came up the next time. Mulder was still lying there, drooling a little. Looked like Rodriguez was right and they wouldn't be running today. 

Meyers picked himself up off the floor, got a glass of water and went to see if there was enough of Spooky in there to know if he was thirsty. 

The water felt cool and smooth over his fingers, struck the bottom of the glass. When he stepped back out, Spooky was mumbling again, almost a whimper. He settled onto his knees, trying to see into the flat, hazel eyes. Mulder had barely moved. Still curled on his side, hands loose and open on the bed in front of his pale, hollow-cheeked face. 

His eyes slid shut as Meyers watched, and he said something the agent couldn't catch, opened his eyes with almost panicky speed. Meyers worried his lip, leaned close. Saw Spooky's eyes slide shut again, stay, stay. He set the glass to one side. 

"NO!" Jumped and spilled water, turning back, but Spooky's eyes were shut now. There was a faint line between his eyebrows, but his eyes were shut. And they stayed shut, as his breathing deepened and he made no more noise after that. 

 

Averman stared at the church, at blackened timbers and caved ceiling, and found Eliot in his mind. 

"To be redeemed from fire by fire. . . " 

"Eh?" Averman spun, startled by the voice behind him. A tall, barrel-chested man with an expensive suit and an avuncular air smiled at him. "I'm afraid I didn't catch what you said. Can I help you? I'm Minister Foster." 

"Ah. I think I've seen you on. . . " 

"Television. Yes." The man's smile was capped and unnaturally white and wide. The accent was magnolia-smooth and sweet, a cadence more than an accent. "Well, you must forgive me if I seem pale today, I feel sure God condones make-up only before the cameras which may carry his word." Averman could feel the warmth of the smile through the insipid words, and found himself shaking the hand offered to him. 

"Perhaps you can help me. I'm trying to get some information on people who may have been interested in your church. . . " 

"My life is devoted to those interested in God's church." 

 

 

"O Lord, deliver me from the man of excellent intention and impure heart: for the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite and Geshem the Arabian: were doubtless men of public spirit and zeal. Preserve me from the enemy who has something to gain: and from the friend who has something to lose. Remembering the words of Nehemiah the Prophet: "The trowel in hand, and the gun rather loose in the holster." Those who sit in a house of which the use is forgotten: are like snakes that lie on mouldering stairs, content in the sunlight. And the others run about like dogs, full of enterprise, sniffing and barking: they say, "This house is a nest of serpents, let us destroy it. And have done with these abominations, the turpitudes of the Christians.' And these are not justified, nor the others. And they write innumerable books; being too vain and distracted for silence: seeking every one after his own elevation, and dodging his emptiness. If Humility and purity be not in the heart, they are not in the home: and if they are not in the home, they are not in the City. The man who has builded during the day would return to his hearth at nightfall: to be blessed with the gift of silence and doze before he sleeps. But we are encompassed with snakes and dogs: therefore some must labour, and others must hold the spears. 

Frito sagged, felt the counter cold under his hands. The seared smell behind him no longer registered. Taylor had fled, and the hot, small popping of the lights was the only sound. 

The Eliot rolled in his eyes, in his head as he let the rigid control loose and felt his shoulders slump, let his head fall so that his chin struck his chest. 

Eliot. He heard it in Francis' voice. "Fire. . . " And there it was. He let it hit this time, the deep, wracking sob that twisted his diaphragm under his ribs and bruised his throat. Shut his eyes and saw his friend's open, empty eyes, fighting sleep. Tears burned hot and bitter in his eyes and he ripped off rubber gloves and scrubbed at his eyes with talcum-stinging hands. 

"Damn it, Francis. Fuck." Whispered words that hurt in his mouth. He walked to the door and locked it, then picked up the phone and dialed home. And listened to the phone ring, again and again and again, until the machine clicked on. 

"Jenni? It's me. . . " He sniffled. Wiped wet across the sleeve of the coat. "Jenni-honey. I miss you so much. This is. . . Francis isn't. . ." He choked on his words. "Jenni, I can't help him. I don't know what to do anymore. I just want to leave this place. Jenni, I miss. . ." The phone cut off, as the tape ended, leaving him with the phone in his hand. And the tears rolled down his face, as the pain of being helpless welled through him. 

 

 

It was dark here, but he wasn't alone. He knew that, knew it so certain and hard, and he froze in the dark and prayed to a god he did not believe in that the things that were in the dark would see him no more than the friends who had shut him out of the light. 

And there were voices here, too. Then there was light. A narrow angle of it, a wedge overhead. Someone was behind him, but he could not wait. He pulled himself up into the light, finding himself on flagstones, with one set to the side, and a big, empty, sterile white church arched over his head. He felt someone behind him, but feared to look. 

The podium was to one side of him, large, smoky lucite. A hand on his shoulder pushed him to look past it. A large, powerful-looking back was to him, facing a child. A naked child. Mulder saw the man kneel before the child. The man leaned in, and he shut his eyes and shook with nausea as the child whimpered in fear. Wet sounds and whispers, and a voice in his ear that commanded him to look. And he looked. The man's fingers dug white patterns in the boy's skin. His face was buried, and wet sounds left Mulder ill, and longing for the peace of darkness. Steps rang hard, and stopped, but he could not look again no matter that the unseen hand pulled his chin up, to see, but closed eyes blinded him still. 

"What are you doing here?" Angry, ringing tones. Scrambling, and the child's whimpers receded with slapping feet and sobs. 

"I came to file the schedule, the children who will be baptized this week." Neutral. Mulder felt the hand slide to his neck, almost pinch, and opened his eyes. The large man was wiping his mouth, putting his swollen cock back in his pants. The other watched, steadily. 

"Whatever you saw or thought you saw. . . " The big man's voice shook just the slightest amount. 

"Why don't you tell me what I saw?" 

Fear and hate greeted the calm. "You bastard. You say one word and. . ." 

"I. . . Mr. Foster, I know that child's parents." The stranger's voice sounded odd. Forced. 

"And I know your kids' parent. I know you. And I know you fuck your son's asshole stupid every night. You say one word, and every other member of the congregation's gonna know that, too. . . . " 

Mulder shut his eyes, forced his hands over his ears and still heard them, heard them, heard them, negotiate away a mortal sin. Bargain away the innocence of children. 

 

 

Averman felt the weight of his memo recorder in the pocket of his suit. The names of men who had worked for the church, and worked in the mission to the indians knocked against his chest each time the recorder and it's little tape slapped him as he walked. His car threw off shimmering waves in the sun, but would be cool soon enough. The other agents would trickle back to Shawnee or Ashton, and call him, as they finished. The door burned under his hand, but was worth it. He slung himself into the car and turned on the air. 

 

Rodriguez wiped his nose and stared at the phone in its cradle. Across the room a little more Eliot unreeled its poisoned works from the mouth of the dead. 

Sam rinsed his face in the sink and went to unlock the door. The paper gown in the trash, briefcase in hand, and he left. He wanted to get out, to see his partner and hope against hope that Joe Cool was back to talk about the fucking autopsy and rag him for the fucking drugs. Or maybe to sleep, and try to forget how angry and scared and lonely he felt. The sun was an insult when he walked out the door. 

 

 

Meyers had been relieved at first. Spooky was finally quiet. But when he was still quiet five hours later, hadn't moved, hadn't twitched, it was hard not to feel nervous. 

This was normal with that kind of drug. He told himself that over and over again. But when he changed the bandages and rubbed cream over angry, thin-walled blisters and Spooky never moved Meyers couldn't help but feel afraid. 

And now, after seven hours, there was nothing there. The water by the bed was warm. The Gatorade untouched. And Meyers felt a sick little fear that this wasn't what Rodriguez had meant when he said Meyers wouldn't need the Dramamine. It would be supper soon and Mulder was completely locked away inside his mind. 

 

 

Places reeled through Mulder's head. And one voice in his ear. And now they walked down a long, dusty street and he still couldn't see who walked just one step behind. The hand on his shoulder. The voice in his ear. 

"Fox. Which one is the next one? Which one?" 

 

 

When Mulder's eyes opened, Meyers was relieved. "Do you want something to drink?" he asked softly. "Let's get you some fresh Gatorade." He took the cup from Mulder's bedside. The small bottle was floating in a nest of cold water. Meyers poured quickly, nervously. Turned back. Mulder was huddled, sitting up now. Knees tight against his chest, eyes dark and staring, arms wrapped around his legs. Meyers sat on the edge of the bed. 

"I saw the nave. I saw the body rotting in the nave. I saw the pattern on the floor. The devil cannot follow the maze, but they make their deals around it in knots too intricate to unwind. Oh, dark, dark, dark. They all go into the dark." Mulder's throat worked. Meyers saw that Mulder was shaking badly. A bead of blood appeared on his lip as he bit through the soft flesh, caught in some nether world of nightmares. "Samantha or Elijah held my shoulders and made me watch the darkness slide into the light of God. 

The wisdom only the knowledge of dead secrets Useless in the darkness into which they peered Or from which they turned their eyes. There is, it seems to us, At best, only a limited value In the knowledge derived from experience. The knowledge imposes a pattern, and falsifies, For the pattern is new in every moment And every moment is a new and shocking Valuation of all we have been. We are only deceived Of that which, deceiving, could no longer harm. In the middle, not only in the middle of the way but all the way, in a dark wood, in a bramble, On the edge of a grimpen, where is no secure foothold. And menaced by monsters, fancy lights, Risking enchantment." 

Mulder put his head to his knees, eyes closed. "The pastor of the church that burned down. How long has he been the pastor there?" 

Meyers puzzled this one. "I don't know." 

"Can you find that out and find out what ministries they have?" Mulder's voice was calm. 

Meyers nodded. "Is there anything else you need?" 

"If they had a ministry among the Native Americans about nine years ago, tell them to find out who the. . ." Mulder swallowed, began shivering violently. "Tell them to find out who the head of that mission was." His voice was barely discernable. "See if they can find out who he was." 

"All right. I will," Meyers agreed. "Do you want to stay awake?" 

The nod was almost completely subsumed in his shaking. 

"Dr. Rodriguez said that you had to eat something. Even if I had to spoonfeed it to you." 

This produced a small smile. "I'm cold." 

"Curl back under the covers," Meyers suggested. 

"I don't. . .want. . .to sleep," Mulder replied. 

Meyers sighed and went over to Mulder's bags, rooted through them. A pair of warmups, but no sweatshirt. Well, who *would* pack a sweatshirt for *this* place? He got the spare blanket down, wrapped it around the agent's shoulders. "Come on," he urged, putting strong arms on Mulder's knees. "Come on. Let's get you back under the covers. You can sit up if you want. He pulled pillows, arranged them behind Mulder's back. 

"Do not let me hear Of the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly, Their fear of fear and frenzy, their fear of possession, Of belonging to another, or to others, or to God. The only wisdom we can hope to acquire Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless. 

The houses are all gone under the sea 

The dancers are all gone under the hill," Mulder whispered. "The man who ran the Indian ministries, Meyers. He's Elijah's father." 

Meyers swallowed, grew pale. 

"Find him and we're one step closer. Elijah hasn't gone by that name for. . .since. . .but we'll know him." 

 

 

Mulder's eyes were fixed on the television when Rodriguez and Averman came in around six. It was a safe bet he had no idea what the plot was or what any of the characters were named. He was still wrapped deeply in his blankets, though he had broken out into a drenching sweat. 

"The church isn't being very cooperative," Averman told Meyers quietly, taking him into Rodriguez' room. "He just. . .told you that the head of their Indian ministries was Elijah's father? Did he give you any proof? Anything that can be used to convince a judge tonight?" 

Meyers shook his head. "He talked about bodies in naves and then quoted some Eliot. Then he told me." 

Averman took a deep breath and then released it. "Meyers, tell two of the other agents to go bug the sheriff of Pawnee. See who remembers the head of Indian Ministries in what? 1978? If they can't find anyone who remembers get Cooke to stir up the waters. Tomorrow's Sunday. Surely some of the good townsfolk will be incensed to come in from listening to the reverend wax lyrical about God only to find that he's trying to fuck the FBI." 

Meyers swallowed. "Yes sir." 

"You're a good kid Meyers. And you're a damn fine agent." 

Meyers smiled, fled. 

 

 

Rodriguez turned off the television. Mulder's attention wavered, momentarily. "Hi, Frito," he said weakly. 

"Hi yourself." Rodriguez slid his hand against Marion's forehead. "Swamp Foxes need to drink vinegar or they catch diseases," he muttered. "How are you feeling?" Francis was burning up. 

"I. . .don't make me go back to sleep. Please. I'm so scared of sleeping." 

Sam smiled softly. "Okay man." He felt the thin ribs and pressed his hand against the flat stomach. 

"Ow." A pained expression passed over the sweaty face. 

"We're going to have to get some food down you tonight." 

"I've been keeping Gatorade down," Mulder replied querulously. 

"I know. But that's not enough. How about some Jello, maybe some clear broth?" 

Francis made a face. 

"No candy bars or anything like that." Rodriguez smiled. 

"Baked potato?" 

"Sorry. You had your chance with those. We're going to have to start you off on something milder." 

"Have they checked the church?" 

"The pastor's giving them a hard time." 

"He's a pedophile," Mulder replied. "They. . .Elijah's dad made a deal with him, they don't expose each other and Elijah's dad gets what he wants." 

Sam nodded, not questioning anything at this point. 

"I'm sorry, Sam. I'm so sorry to drag you through this." Mulder's voice was soft, shaking with anguish. "I. . ." 

"It's okay, Francis. It really is." Rodriguez put a hand on his friend's shoulder, moved the hand so that it cupped the short, dark hair. "I know it isn't intentional. You don't want to be like this." 

"But that doesn't make. . ." Francis closed his eyes. 

"I'm going to order you some room service." The fever was new and worrisome, but after spending the night in ice water, it could be normal. Marion nodded. 

Averman came back over, leaned in the door. "We'll find that name." He said gently. 

Mulder looked up, watched as Rodriguez disappeared into the next room. "He's scared," he said quietly when the doctor had disappeared. Averman entered the room, frown creasing his brow. 

"Don't put a lot of grief on Frito," Mulder whispered. 

Averman nodded, craned his neck into Rodriguez' room. "Why don't you go to dinner tonight," he barked. "I'll stay with wonderboy tonight. We need to discuss the case." 

It was a blatant lie and it fooled no one, but Mulder heard Rodriguez agree. 

"There. You're stuck with an old Marine Sergeant," Averman said. "If you weren't psychotic before, my war stories will push you over the fine edge." 

Mulder grinned weakly. 

 

 

Averman had meant what he said. Rodriguez wandered down the hall to meet the other agents, left Mulder and Averman staring at foods that the Hispanic had deemed "safe." 

"Let's get some clothes on you first," Averman decreed, not wanting to face puke green jello. "I've got a sweat shirt if you don't mind my daughter's college on the front." 

Mulder nodded. "I have some sweatpants." He lurched up. Averman's hands came down on his shoulders. "I'll get them. You look like you couldn't walk very far." 

"Well I better be able to make it to the john." Mulder grimaced. 

"I also don't want to stare at your dick longer than I have to." 

"What's wrong, Averman?" Mulder teased, watching as the AIC dug through his bags, found his ratty FBI sweatpants. "Scared that you won't be able to look at your puny equipment without distaste after you've seen what manhood can be?" 

"Your dong couldn't hold a handle to a real man's. I've had black soldiers whimper and beg me not to ever let their wife see my dick, because it made theirs look like a vienna sausage," Averman replied, grinning. "Do you need help getting these on?" 

"I think I can do it myself." 

"Good." Averman tossed him the sweats on his way out of the room. He came back a moment later, as Mulder was tying the drawstring. "You missed it Averman. I know you Marines just salivate for a good look at another man's butt." 

"You have obviously mistaken Marines for pansy, new FBI college boys who majored in limp wrist psychology at faggo universities like Oxford." He gave Mulder the sweatshirt. 

"Baylor? You're daughter's at Baylor?" 

"Damn straight. It's a damn fine school," Averman growled. "She loves it too." 

Mulder blinked, decided not to tease Averman about his child's choice of schools. He put on the sweatshirt, got up and hobbled to the bathroom on his own. 

A few minutes later he emerged, went to his bag. "My feet are cold," he complained. 

Averman was staring at the dinner. "There's chicken consomme, applesauce, and lime jello," he informed Mulder. "I didn't know anyone ate lime jello straight." 

"What do you do with it then?" Mulder came to the bed, put the socks on and curled back up in his nest. 

"Well, Ellen would make this salad with marshmallows and cottage cheese. . ." Averman recalled. 

"What happened to your wife?" 

"Her car got hit by a log truck when we were stationed in North Carolina. She died instantly." Averman got the broth and a spoon. 

"I'm sorry." 

"She was a wonderful person. I believe in a heaven. When I die, I'll be with her again." 

Mulder stared at him. 

"You don't believe that way?" 

Mulder shrugged. "I don't. . .I don't know." He held out his hands for the soup. 

Averman watched his hands for a moment, stared at the bandages that made Mulder awkward and the cold and fever that made Mulder unstable and shook his head. "You couldn't hold it without spilling." He put the bowl down on Mulder's cluttered bedside table, got a towel to put under the agent's chin. "I haven't spoon fed anyone since Lisa was a baby," he muttered, grateful that Mulder had decided against fighting him on this. 

"My dad used to, when I got hurt and the drugs made me dopey," Mulder said conversationally. 

"You got hurt a lot," Averman said gently. 

Mulder nodded, accepting the spoonfuls. "He was in government work for a while, he worked with the military." 

Averman nodded. "What did he do?" 

"He worked for the state department. Cold war secrets." Mulder smiled. "Mostly he took care of the German scientists. Elijah told me he wants me to choose the next one." 

Averman froze, stared at the agent coiled up in bed. 

"What are you talking about?" 

"I have to. . ." Mulder swallowed. Averman watched as his eyes moved from clear, level sanity to some terrifying inward place. "He. . ." Mulder closed his eyes. "He showed me two children. Asked me to choose the one God wanted." 

Averman put the broth down. Whether this was real or not, it was real to Mulder. "What did you say when he asked?" 

"Elijah knows he hurt me. He didn't mean to. He didn't know I was so scared of fire." Mulder sighed, stared at his hands. "I always felt. . .responsible for my sister. I always tried to take care of her. If someone had hurt her, molested her, I would have killed them. Elijah doesn't deserve the death penalty for what he's doing." 

Averman nodded. 

"He's not. . .he thinks he's helping those kids. He loves them. Do you think that they'll let him be committed?" 

"I doubt it. The case is too high profile. He'll fry." 

Mulder considered this. "Are we finished yet?" he asked softly. 

"No. Not yet." 

"I'm not hungry." 

"You've got to eat. Rodriguez will have our heads." Averman proffered more of the broth. Mulder pushed it back, distastefully. 

"Jello?" 

Mulder sighed unhappily. "Do you think I need to be hospitalized? Frito does." 

Averman switched bowls. Thought about his answer. "You need some time off when this is over. Go someplace where you aren't Spooky Fox Mulder and no one knows you write profiles of serial killers." 

"I think I can handle feeding myself Jello if you've got a fork." 

"Good. This color is making me sick." 

Continued in part 20............. 

=========================================================================== 

From: livengoo@tiac.net Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 20/41 NC-17 Date: 9 Feb 1996 00:10:33 GMT 

Oklahoma (Part 20/41) By Amperage and Livengoo Copyright October, 1995 

International Readers: No third season spoilers Rating: NC-17 for language and violence 

Fox Mulder and the X-Files are the creation and intellectual property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting. The FBI is the property of the US Government. Oklahoma and Louisiana and Texas belong to exactly who you think they'd belong to, and everything else belongs to Amperage and Livengoo. 

__________________ 

Six people, two cars. Frito rode with Meyers and Tyler and Cooke, listening to the country-western that was just about all they could get on the radios in the cheap, government fleet cars the FBI assigned to them. He missed the luxury of Averman's Taurus. 

"Spent the day with the Spookster?" Tyler's voice was quiet, self-conscious. Sam tensed, but he kept his mouth shut and waited to see what would happen. 

"Yeah. He was pretty tired, but he may have hit another break through today." 

"Hmm? What's that?" The kind of quiet, truly casual tone that said Tyler wasn't watching his words and talking pretty. Behind them, Sam heard Cooke shift, but the PR man kept his mouth shut. 

"He figures the guy's old man ran the Indian Ministries when he came out here, about nine years back." The turn signal ticked as Meyers followed Bond's car onto the strip. 

"How's he get that?" Frito felt his belly go cold, and the sweat felt sour on his butt and his ribs as he waited for Meyers' reply. 

The kid hesitated, and Sam was about to interrupt when he started in a voice that caught as he worked it through. "Well. . . the early kids were Indians. And he's killed off more Indians than other kids. . . " 

"So? They're like fleas on a dog around here." Sam felt sudden heat, snapping anger at the memory of a child on a table. Too many children on tables. The young agent's voice started again before the acid words could sound. "And Social Services tracks a lot of those kids. Why's he figure it's a ministry instead of through Social Services?" 

Meyers' tone was suddenly firmer, on ground where he felt more sure. "The religious symbolism and the poems the Butcher leaves with the bodies. Spooky says that they're not just there to give us something to read while we're wanking off, Tyler." 

"Okay." The older man's tone was laughing now. Frito felt the rueful grin on his own face, hearing Meyers work to sound like Mulder. In the dark glass of the window his reflection stared stared back, lit by the passing lights of malls and cars. "What about you, Rodriguez? What do you make of all of it? You worked with Spooky before. . . " 

"This one's a little different." Sam cut him off in a rush. Reached for the rope Meyers had left dangling. "But given the age of the man Sally Weaverbird described, and the ages of the bodies we got out at the Chapel, I think that nine year figure is a good ballpark. Maybe work two or three years up and down the line. We'll have an even clearer picture when we get the names back to match that sorority ring." He sat back and took a deep breath. The rush of relief as they pulled into the - inevitable - rib house was almost dizzying. Tyler and Cooke got out, but Meyers looked back at Sam a moment. 

"Should we order anything to take back, Dr. Rodriguez?" Sam stared at him a moment, hearing a different question entirely. 

"We'll take something back for Averman. . . Good take on all that, Meyers. Very good take." Sam's smile was brilliant in the dim light of the parking lot. He ducked to get his head clear of the door frame, and grinned as his stomach growled at him. He almost laughed, running Meyers' analysis back through his head. So simple. So very simple. 

They pulled a short table and a long one together to make room for six, and settled into the comfortable chairs to wait for one of the cheery and brassy waitresses to fight her way to their corner of the world. Rodriguez would have been happier not to be sitting next to Cooke, but saw no point to antagonizing the man. The pudgy, Irish features shone with relief and sweat and sunburn as the waitress took their drink orders and dodged back with a full tray. Frito heard ice in Cooke's glass clatter as that first amber sip slid down his throat. Frito's own ale tasted rich and smooth, wonderfully foreign to the hot, dry land held at bay by the air conditioning. He breathed a silent prayer for a rib-house owner with good taste in beer. 

Hitchens was at the opposite end of the table, playing with an unlit cigarette. Frito could hear him discussing horse racing results with Bond. Tyler's voice overlaid them, talking with Meyers about women, and cars. 

"You're married, aren't you?" Cooke's harsh voice half-startled Frito, brought his eyes open and he cocked his head forward to study the slick face next to him. "What's your wife like, Rodriguez?" 

"Jenni's. . . " Frito let his head tilt back again. Let his fingers drift up and down the smooth, wet, cool curve of his glass as he thought of his wife. "Jenni's from Virginia. Horse country. 

She's spoiled and aggravating, and expensive, and she has the most wonderful voice." He knew his own voice had gone languid, wasn't really listening to the clatter and voices around him any more. He was trying to remember how the meadows smelled where his wife liked to go horse-back riding, and the smell of her, mixed with horse and hay, and dust and love, when they'd lain exhausted in the loft of the barn behind her father's house. He swallowed. Took a sip of the beer, and let the dark liquid and froth slide down his throat. 

Cooke scowled into his glass. "My ex has the kids. Timothy and Eleanor." Somehow the names didn't surprise Frito. He sighed and focused on the man next to him. "I wish she'd get married and quit soaking me. He looked away from his glass. Was quiet a long time, but Frito could see his throat working, see him working through words. He finally tossed back the rest of his drink and looked at Rodriguez. 

"I found a Catholic church. It's near here. This is Saturday and they're open late tonight and I'm going after dinner. . . " 

Frito stared at him, considered the offer unsaid. He felt the word 'no' in his mouth as he felt his head nod. "All right. I'll ride back after dinner. We'll stop there." The slow, shaky smile on Cooke's face wiped away the pugnacious ugliness of him, and left a man who was just painfully plain, and painfully frightened. 

"Thank you, Dr. Rodriguez. Thank you." He turned back and leered hungrily to see the waitress with a huge tray heading their way from the kitchen. 

 

 

The bedside lamp made queasy, twitching refractions through the swamp green of the jello. Every so often, the kid would take a slow, careful nibble and pull a face, but he mainly looked at the papers spread around him, and at his computer screen. The heavy cable ran back over his knees and into a wall socket by the bed. 

Jack Averman sighed and stared at his own work, rubbing his blurred eyes and regretting the messy handwriting of his notes. At least the others had to submit their contact reports to him typed up. Thought of a smug, big man with too-white teeth and no make-up. 

"And the first went, and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image." 

"Revelations?" Mulder was staring at him, puzzled. 

Averman grinned back. "Yeah, I think I met one of the ones who got splashed, but the mark wore off a little. Think that's why a nice God-fearing, Baptist killer's using a papist mackerel-snapper of a poet, and not the Bible?" 

Spooky snorted. "We already ignored the old prophets. Time to find a new one." He gave his jello a listless stab with the fork. 

"So what does Eliot say about plagues, Mulder?" Averman sat back and watched, looking for Agent Mulder instead of Spooky Mulder for the first time in too many days. 

Dark hair was darker still with fever sweat, but the agent's eyes were clear when he slumped back into the nest of pillows. He shivered and thought for a minute, eyes flickering back and forth over lines in books Averman couldn't see. When he smiled and started his voice was thin, but steady. 

"The wounded surgeon plies the steel That questions the distempered part; Beneath the bleeding hands we feel The sharp compassion of the healer's art Resolving the enigma of the fever chart. 

Mulder was grinning, a wry, reflexive expression. Averman almost laughed. "Better not let Rodriguez hear you quote that one. What's the rest of it?" 

"Our only health is the disease If we obey the dying nurse Whose constant care is not to please But to remind of our, and Adam's curse, And that, to be restored, our sickness must grow worse." 

 

Pop! Goes the Weasel! 

He was vomiting onto the hard surface of the picnic table onto. . . the bed and then there was a waste paper basket and strong hands holding his head forward and choking and coughing and green, it was all so fucking green. 

"Shh. Shh." Averman's voice. Rubbing his back. Waiting for anything more. Waiting. Mulder coughed, choked, made a sound like a man searching for a good spit. Spat something up. 

Mulder put his face against the smooth of the shirt. felt an arm go around his back. The wastebasket moved. Cold and he hurt. His ribs were crying, not screaming, just crying like lost children. His throat was doing all the screaming for everything else. His head, oh hell, his head hurt. He could feel it throbbing. His arms felt dead, sweat had dried on him. It was so cold, all that sweat. 

He heard Rodriguez' feet, did not feel up to looking at him, at turning his head from the protective haven of warm stomach and soft cotton. Heard Averman's voice, heard Frito answer. Indecipherable. Words without form or meaning. Sounds carrying across the desert and landing in the black water. And then someone pulling on him. 

"Go 'way," he muttered. His arms were too heavy. Oh he was tired. And there was puke. No. No. Only little kids vomited in bed. He hadn't ever vomited in bed. 

Averman's voice was clearer, sharper. The covers were rolled down. He had vomited in bed. Mulder moaned. "I'm sorry." 

"No. It's okay," Averman whispered. He was speaking English now instead of those noises. "Come on. Let's get you to bed over in Sam's room. Sam has two doubles instead of one King. Okay?" 

Mulder nodded. He removed his head from Averman's waist. "Are you going to take me to the hospital?" he asked softly, hesitantly, terrified of the answer. 

"No," Sam replied as Averman bent down. Averman pulled Mulder to his feet, supported almost all his weight. It would have been easier, he supposed, for Averman just to carry him next door. But Averman was going to give him that dignity. 

Rodriguez took Mulder's other shoulder over his and helped him into the room, let him collapse onto the bed. "You're burning up," he muttered. 

"Elijah is travelling," Mulder whispered, feeling the close of cotton sheet and Sam's extra blanket over his covers and then Sam's bed cover over that. Averman disappeared, returned with a washcloth, a glass with some water in it. "He's headed north. Almost to Colorado. You can see for miles and miles and miles out there. It's all fields and the aquifer." He lifted his head to swish water around in his mouth. Spit back into the glass. Wiped the washcloth over his face. "I saw him at the rest station. He was dancing out in the rain. . ." 

Rodriguez and Averman exchanged glances at the soft mutterings and ramblings of Spooky Mulder. Great. North. More car trips. Why couldn't the baby butcher just stay in Oklahoma City or Tulsa or something. There were plenty of kids who were sexually abused in those cities. Really there were. 

"Okay. Can it wait until in the morning? Can we find Elijah now?" Rodriguez asked gently. 

"She's a teenager. She's older. I saw her." Mulder closed his eyes. "She's beautiful. Just like Sarah was. I don't think Sam would have been drop dead gorgeous." 

"I don't know. Her brother sure is." Sam went over to his briefcase, pulled a bottle of Tylenol. "Come on. Two big pills. Think you can choke them down?" 

Mulder frowned. "What are they?" 

"Tylenol. It'll help the fever," Rodriguez replied with a smile, the smile a doctor reserved for patients. He looked up at Averman. "Let's run him a cold bath." 

"All those videos finally go to your head?" Mulder asked, taking the pills. 

Rodriguez grinned. "Yeah. You keep dreaming. And you better hope you keep that down." 

"If you say the word suppository I'll vomit all over you," Mulder managed to growl as he sat up, and let Frito help him pull the sweat shirt off. 

"Okay. I won't say it." 

"I'm cold." He was already shivering. 

"I know. I know. But we've got to get the fever down," Rodriguez replied. "Come on. Back up." Mulder struggled to his feet, leaned against Sam. Tired and sore and he could feel a butterfly's wings if it shuddered the air. 

"Do I have to get buck naked in front of you both?" he bitched, collapsing on the toilet seat. 

Averman grinned. "I already told you I don't go for menage a trois." 

"No. You stay," Mulder ordered querulously. He stared at them both from fever ridden, bright eyes. "Sam, go lust after Madonna." 

"She's not a natural blonde." 

"Neither is Jenni," Mulder shot back. 

"She's got the same color as her mother." 

"Same bottle." 

It wasn't up to the usual, but Sam grinned anyway. 

Mulder finished getting undressed with Sam gone. "I'm so fucking cold. I can't believe you're making me take a cold bath, when I'm this fucking cold," he muttered, leaning against Averman, dropping down into the water, "My dick is going to sue me for assault and battery." He shivered. "I hate baths." 

Averman sat down on the floor. 

Mulder sank down into the water, teeth chattering. Closed his eyes. A shadow loomed. Averman had a towel rolled up. Mulder pulled his head, felt the towel go under his neck. 

She walked hesitantly. Her hips were small and her breasts sharp jutting knots. But her long hair was the blonde of straw and October sunshine. There was grace in her step and her eyes were the color of the ocean in winter, walking along the shore after Thanksgiving dinner. Cold. It was so cold. 

The bed would be warm. It was cold. 

Snuggling under warm cotton sheets. The hard firm lines and the curls of fur and the tufts. He pulls the sheets up and tucks himself in. 

Silver jewelry and mousse and hair spray and the curling iron. Press it against your skin. Burn and sizzle and bite your tongue, stare at the Bonjovi picture on your wall to keep from screaming. 

But when you pull it away, the water drops roll off it. Dark mark, boiling away from skin. It does not hurt. You can pluck and pull and it will not hurt. 

Shall these bones live? shall these Bones live? And that which had been contained In the bones . . .said chirping Because of the goodness of this Lady And because of her loveliness, and because She honours the Virgin in meditation We shine in brightness. And I who am here dissembled Proffer my deeds in oblivion, and my love To the posterity of the desert and the fruits of the gourd. 

Lady of silences Calm and distressed Torn and most whole Rose of memory Rose of forgetfulness Exhausted and life-giving Worried reposeful The single rose Is now the Garden. 

The hospital is quiet tonight. A small boy cries quietly, and is soon stilled with the shots. The nurse smooths his brow, bites her lip, wondering how long they will keep him this time, how long before he comes again with his eyes betrayed and full of pain. 

Oh, but it hurt just to breathe. His blood felt tired in his veins and the air was heavy in his aching chest. 

The cold rushed back as he turned off the water. Swept around him as he dragged himself upright. No clean sweats left. He pulled on his jeans, stopped, with them over his knees to gather the strength to stand. The effort to pull them to his waist, button them. Let himself drop back. The sink was cool against his arm and chin where he rested across it. Knocking on the door again. "Mulder, you need help in there?" He wanted to say no. Wanted to tell them all to go away. Heard Averman curse at the quiet, and the knob turned after a moment. Averman was looking at him. Shook his head. "Christ. Let's get you out of here." Picked up the shirt and helped him pull it on, buttoned it up. Hazy. Remembered a time when his ribs hurt, and someone had helped him button his shirts. . . 

"I'll do it." His fingers were clumsy, but he got them done. Averman helped pull him onto his feet. 

"What were you doing in there? Minute Rodriguez turns his back to go take a crap and you vanish again. Christ, lucky you didn't go straight down the drain." 

"I'm from the wrong country for that. You're just sorry you missed seeing my dick. Jesus, I just wanted to get clean, Averman. It's not a federal crime." Mulder let his legs fold out from under him. Stared at the television. Too late in the morning for the local boys now, this was the Crystal Cathedral out in California. What were these people doing that they needed to be saved five times before lunch? 

Averman settled on the foot of the bed, with his OJ and an Egg McMuffin. Handed a fresh Gatorade to Mulder. "Here. Do me a favor and keep it down." 

"I toss it and you'll be the first to know." Popped the lid. The blankets, still fresh from the laundry cart, felt rough on fever-sore skin, but Mulder pulled them tighter around himself and took a sip of the nasty, piss yellow stuff. Wrinkled his nose. "When do we go to Enid?" 

Averman glanced back at him. "You said he'll be done tomorrow. That she's already dead." 

Mulder hesitated, nodded. "Yes. Today he's. . . " Flitting image of flesh and vermin. The skull beneath the skin. He swallowed. Averman was watching him, and didn't press the question. 

"It'll be about three or four hours on the road. Bond is out renting a Caravan. If we have to do that drive we might as well do it right." Averman opened his McMuffin, put the hash brown on it. Turned back to the television and started wolfing down the food. 

Mulder sighed. Looked up as they heard the door open in Sam's room. Swallowed sudden fear when Frito walked through the connecting door, dropped his briefcase and a shopping bag on the foot of the bed. Felt his balls pull up watching Frito get out a syringe and tubes. 

"Do we really need to do this? I don't feel nearly so shitty. . . " Averman was politely not watching. Frito stared at him. 

"You can let me do this, Marion, or I can take you to the hospital." Felt the color drain from his face. Swallowed and nodded. Held out his arm for the tourniquet. 

The sting of the needle was fast, and the tubes were capped and put away. Averman collected them. "Just drop these off at Shawnee General at the front desk?" 

"Yeah, the guys at the path lab are expecting them. I owe Taylor a steak dinner." Mulder watched them talk over his head. Watched the AIC leave with his blood. Frito turned back, watching him with the doctor-look that he hated like hell. Bit his lip and kept his finger over the puncture wound, pressing to stop the bruise. 

Finally heard Frito sigh. "You're going to make this hard, aren't you, Marion?" Glanced up to see his friend's tired eyes. 

"You want to shove an IV and a shitload full of Thorazine in my arm. And you want me to make that easy for you?" Soft, tired voice. "If you think I'm going to make that easy, you're the one who really needs the Thorazine." 

"If anything else had worked, I wouldn't be doing this." He was pulling out a bag of clear solution, tubing, a needle. "If we don't get fluids into you, we'll have to put you in the hospital." 

"Right, and as long as you're putting fluids into me, you might as well shoot me with enough Thorazine so you can just lean me in a corner to drool and collect my paycheck." He let his head fall back into the pillows. Swallowed and felt his Adam's apple slide up and down his throat. Felt the anger go thin and pale, too hard to maintain. "I'm not fighting you on the damn IV, Frito. But please, don't fuck me over with the Thorazine." 

Sam sat down on the bed, next to Mulder's feet. "Francis. Listen, you throw up every time we get anything into you. You're getting dry heaves, for Christ's sake. You keep doing this, and you'll seriously fuck up your body chemistry. You can't keep doing this shit. You'll really hurt yourself if you keep doing this. We need you in Enid. You keep doing this, and we're going to be forced to hospitalize you." Looked into tired, hazel eyes. A thin, pale face that El Greco could have painted. 

"Fuck it, Frito. Just fuck it. You're going to dick me over one way or the other." Listless. Just let Frito roll his arm over and tourniquet him again, shove the needle in his arm. He didn't have a real stand for it, he used tape and got the thing fixed over Mulder's head with the steady flow into his arm. Waited, while Frito fussed with the needle and ampoules. "You'll give me that no matter what I say, won't you?" 

Frito's face was pinched, tight. He drew the drugs into the syringe with quick, coldly efficient movements. Mulder pulled himself up a little, and back into the pillows. He couldn't look away from the damned needle. "Frito, wait. . . " Sam glanced at him, then leaned forward to spike the IV. 

Mulder couldn't help it. Couldn't stop the sound in the back of his throat, low and animal. Couldn't stop as he reached for the needle in his arm, desperate to pull the line out before the drug could hit. Sam grabbed his wrist and pulled his hand up, away from the IV, looked into wide, fear-dilated eyes. "Please. . . " 

"You can't keep going like this." Soft, soothing tones. "Marion, I can't let you." 

"You're sending me to hell." He could see Francis swallow, see the color drain out of his face. "I can't keep it away any more when you drug me. I can't. . . " Valium and Thorazine hitting fast, and the wrist in his hand wasn't pulling so hard. Francis' eyes were going out of focus, and the tension in his face was relaxing. Sam leaned forward and pushed his hair back off his forehead. 

"It's all right, man. You'll be all right. Just relax now, let us help." Murmured words, watching his friend slowly drift into the haze. Felt the frown edge between his own eyes as he stroked dark hair, trying to let Francis know he wasn't alone, they were there. He'd be all right. 

\--He knew the anguish of the marrow  
The ague of the skeleton;  
No contact possible to flesh  
Allayed the fever of the bone.

But in the night time  
And in the nether world  
Where the meshes we have woven  
Bind us to each other  
Follow follow. . .

Continued in part 23...........

=====================================================================  
======

From: livengoo@tiac.net  
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative  
Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 23/41 NC-17  
Date: 12 Feb 1996 08:31:37 GMT

Oklahoma (Part 23/41)  
By Amperage and Livengoo  
Copyright October, 1995

International Readers: No third season spoilers  
Rating: NC-17 for language and violence

Fox Mulder and the X-Files are the creation and intellectual  
property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting. The  
FBI is the property of the US Government. Oklahoma and Louisiana  
and Texas belong to exactly who you think they'd belong to, and  
everything else belongs to Amperage and Livengoo.

Meyers helped again. He and Averman got Mulder draped between them. Almost carried him out to the van. Sam had hoped he'd lie down and sleep in the back, but Marion kept forcing his eyes back open, kept fighting his way back up, to curl into the corner of the seat, staring blindly out the window.

It was no time at all to pack and toss their bags into the van. Meyers would ride in the back with Mulder, while Sam took thepassenger seat and tried to sleep. Averman preferred to drive. Cooke would bring his car. Half the team would stay this time, working with the cops in Shawnee, and with Social Services. They'd follow when they knew who Elijah's father was, or when they knewMulder was right.

\--Blur of golden brown past wide eyes. Like the sea. The sea.  
Wide and flat and never ends. . . never.

And I have known the eyes already, known them all -  
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,  
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,  
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,  
The how should I begin  
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?

The tires hummed and groaned on hot asphalt. Shimmers hovered over the road, little disturbed by thin, Sunday traffic in the heat. Seer fields baked and sweltered, waiting for fall and rain. An hour to Oklahoma City, and the air conditioning whispered and fought the sun that washed through the glass.

Sam watched Francis a moment, staring blankly out the window, face slack but awake. Meyers, in the very back, dozed. Averman reached for the radio, spinning to a gospel station, grinned at the expression on Rodriguez' face. "And what would you listen to, Sam?"

"No chance I can get you to go for Puccini, is there?"

Averman snorted. "I grew up out here. You can wait for DeeCee to listen to that nancy-boy crap."

Sam grinned tolerantly. "And you want to listen to the dickless wonders sing falsetto for Jesus? Or prancing fairies in sequins singing country-western?" Searching for a news station "Let's see if Ed Meese has got any new stuff for his resume."

"You mean like perjury?"

"Learning his criminal law the hard way." Sam laughed, settled on a station and sat back. "He can bunk with Ollie. Now there's a fine Marine."

"Least he got to work with Fawn Hall."

"Jesus. And here I thought you marines were just looking for a few good men. . . " Sam watched the fields, bored. Finally leaned into his shoulder belt and slept.

Mulder's mouth was dry, cotton dry, and stale. His eyes ached, open wide to stare out at beige and brown. The sea of grass. Knew he was not alone.

\--I am beginning to feel, just beginning to feel That there is something I *could* understand, if I were told it, But I'm not sure that I want to know. . . --

But I cannot remember and the light was so bright. . .

Something inside me, you think, that can be altered!  
And here, indeed! where I have felt them near me,  
Here and here and here - wherever I am not looking,  
Always flickering at the corner of my eye,  
Almost whispering just out of earshot -  
And inside too, in the nightly panic  
Of dreaming dissolution. You do not know,  
You cannot know, you cannot understand.

Waiting for them to come back. They said they would bring her  
back. A warm, red trickled from my ear, a ringing in my head.

A curse is slow in coming  
To complete fruition  
It cannot be hurried  
And it cannot be delayed. . .

Averman's voiceless humming melted into the sounds of the radio and nothing was clear, was clear, was clear. . . Thirsty and his arm ached. Fingers found the bruise, and the cold, hard thing that dove, stinging, into his flesh. Let it be, not to be touched. . . shivered and pulled the blankets around to fight off the cold, feeling the wet roll down his sides, fever-driven.

\--What is this face, less clear and clearer  
The pulse in the arm, less strong and stronger -

His face turns towards me, hers between his hands.  
"You helped me choose. . . within the church."

"Elijah. . . "

"Not air, fire or water, Fox. I sent her back by earth.  
And left for you. . . the skull beneath the skin."

Oklahoma City an hour behind them and hours yet to go. Meyers was at the wheel, Averman napping in the back. Sam finished his lousy meal from Taco Hell, wadded the wrapper and tossed it with the rest.

Looked over his shoulder. Marion was awake. Fuck it, fighting it off. And talking. Sam felt the chill start right under his ribs, and freeze his bowels, watching blank eyes, and the smooth, young face. Meyers glanced back, in the mirror. Shook off the prickles of cold that ran up his spine. "Pull off at the next rest stop, Meyers." The kid nodded, still watching between the mirror and the road.

Sam unbuckled his seat belt and moved back to sit next to Marion. To listen to him tune in stations that no one had ever heard.

"Well! and what if she should die some afternoon,  
Afternoon gray and smoky, evening yellow and rose;  
Should die and leave me sitting. . .

Not knowing what to feel or if I understand  
Or whether wise or foolish, tardy or too soon. . .  
Would she not have the advantage, after all?"

Sam shivered at the flat voice, uninflected, clear words that simply spilled from the drugged man. Adjusted the IV hanging from the suit hook, checked the tape that held the needle in Marion's arm. Francis turned his head in a slow, careful motion to stare into his eyes, but Sam didn't really think he was seeing him. 

"Now that we talk of dying -  
And should I have the right to smile?

You are invulnerable, you have no Achilles' heel.  
You will go on, and when you have prevailed  
You can say: at this point many a one has failed."

He stopped, swallowed. Frowned. "Sam?"

"Hi, Marion. How do you feel?" Odd to see him suddenly trying to focus. Sam pulled his makeshift medical kit out from under the seat. Located another bag of solution, more Thorazine.

"Far away, in the smoke and the fog. . . "

"We're here too, Marion. You're going to be all right." Got a faint, lost smile back. Heard the turn signal clicking, and the van pulled onto a ramp and slowed. Averman was stirring in back.

"It's okay, Frito. I'm not alone. I can hear them. He's washed her clean, Frito. Took the skin from the arm, muscle from the bone. That's all he's left for us. . . the bones." Slurred now, not quite a mumble, but not really clear either. Drifting away again.

Sam shivered again. Reached to pull the blankets tighter around Marion. Watched him let his head fall back against smooth glass, cool against the fever. Averman stretched, leaned over the seat as Meyers found a parking slot.

"How is he?"

"Still hot as hell." Glazed eyes focused on his again as he spoke. Watched him set up the next IV. Sam tried to get through. "How you doing, Marion? You need to take a leak?" Could see the effort as Mulder focused on him. Shook his head.

"S'okay. You'll have to play with your own dick, Frito. . . " Slurred, and it trailed off, but Sam smiled back. Reached past him to hang the new IV up. Bastard was probably sweating the stuff out before it could hit his bladder. A hot, humid wave smothered them as Averman got out of the van.

"I'll stay with him if you want to take a break, Dr. Rodriguez." Meyers had turned in his seat. "You can spell me after that." Sam grinned and bailed out, following Averman towards the brick "comfort stations."

Sour reek of roadside latrines. He was almost relieved to step back into the sun, into air that seemed clear after that. Averman was outside, with a phone at his ear. Blue and white kiosks that Ma Bell used these days instead of booths. Arm braced over his head as he listened with a pained frown on his face. Sam pulled his shades out of his pocket, felt the earpieces slip on sweat as he put them on. Waited for the AIC to hang up.

"What is it?" Averman was moving, finding the shade of the brick tourist station.

"Enid's got a body."

"Is it her?"

"They. . . they don't know yet." Averman's voice was thin, strained. Sam frowned.

"What did he do to her? They've got her description. . . was it like Weaverbird?"

Averman shuddered, suddenly green. "No. It looks like he shot her, but they can't tell anything else. He. . . broke into some museum up there." The man swallowed convulsively, forcing his nausea back. "You ever hear of carpet beetles, Sam?"

Sam frowned, puzzled. It seemed familiar, but just out of reach. Shook his head finally. 

"Seems they eat anything, pretty much. Anything. They use 'em in museums to clean up those skeletons for display." Averman  
couldn't hold it any more. Simply turned and heaved. Throat working, guts pulling up over and over until he'd lost all he'd eaten. Breakfast and lunch, nothing left. Leaned into the brick, spat. Blew his nose and walked away to find a water fountain and drank and spat and drank again. Sam stared at him, palms sweating, nerves twisted. Averman cleared his mouth again and drank some more, wiped his mouth and walked back with slow, stiff steps. 

Rubbed his face. "Sam, seems like they use carpet beetles to clean the flesh off of bone. Elijah took that pretty girl and killed her, and he put her in a drawer fulla carpet beetles. They're not sure it's her until they check her teeth and the dental records, cause her bones are all that's left."

Sam's skin crawled and his dick felt shrunk with horror. Dropping cold in his belly left his guts quivering while the sun lashed sweat on his skin. "That's what Marion said. That bones were all he'd left."

 

It was still late afternoon when they pulled into Enid, into the Holiday Inn, with reservations made by Averman that morning. Mulder could have cared less. He was working on his third IV of the day. Dry heaves twice. Still running a fever. Getting here meant no more riding in the car, listening to weather reports and the news and watching everyone's eyes. They had found the girl. Found what was left. He wanted to rip the IV out, wanted to scream and arch his back and wanted not to be here. Somewhere, anywhere else. At this point what would they do? At this point he would get a quiet room in a mental hospital and they would be summarily fired. At this point he had nothing to fear. Except that they were good men and he would not do that to them. Except for a child.

The Holiday Inn here was strictly speaking, not a hotel, but a motel. All the rooms had outside doors. No one said anything, but they could all hear each other thinking it. Mulder won't have to go through the halls or the lobby.

Thoughts came and receded, and the cold. The cold shimmered around him, an invisible barrier between his world and the hot Oklahoma sun.

He breathed, huddled in the roughness of the blanket when the door opened. Frito took the IV down. "Come on." His hands were strong. Mulder swallowed. He hurt. His head was swollen and wrapped in thick cotton, his arms heavy, leaden weights. His body edgy and sensitive, his skin suddenly entirely too thin and every breath of air caused him pain. His stomach was still vaguely nauseous, his ribs bruised, his esophagus raw. His mouth was thick.

They moved slowly, out of the minivan. A little stone step up and across some gravel and he could curl up under smooth hotel sheets and. . .he felt ashamed as he fell, as the world tilted and his feet faltered and he saw the jarring of azure and white, as his hands blocked the pavement, but were not enough and slid, sharp, and his cheek burned against concrete.

The arms had him, and he did not have to walk. There was blood and the ripped stinging in his hands. Dirt in a stinging on his face. The bed was firm and hard and he just wanted to sleep. He heard bags and movements and doors opening and shutting. And he curled up, felt the blood stinging and leaking where the IV had been. Did not care.

"Come on." Frito's voice was soft. Another needle. More tape. Another plastic bag. Mulder remained huddled on the bed.

"I don't want it," he said clearly.

"Francis. Don't be a pain about this. Okay. Come on." Sam put firm arms on the huddled figure.

"NO!" Mulder locked tight, strong. "I DON'T WANT IT." Sam stopped struggling with him.

"Come on man. Come on. You know we're doing this to help you."

"NO."

"We don't have. . ." he trailed. Disappeared. When he came back there were other voices and other steps. 

Mulder tensed, focused his strength.

"Son. You've got to let Rodriguez put that IV back in. You're dehydrated."

"No more drugs," Mulder whispered.

He could not see, but could sense Averman looking across the double bed at Frito. Frito's pursed lips and shake of head.

"We're just trying to help you. Come on." Averman's arm was strong.

"I don't want any more. I won't say anything. I promise. I won't scream. I promise. I'll do anything. Promise," Mulder cried, breaking into tears. "Please."

"We're not doing this to punish you. You know that. You're sick. Come on." Averman's arm went under his side.

Mulder twisted as though the touch were fire. Began babbling. "Don't. . .please don't."

"Come on." Averman had his other arm, had both arms. He grabbed on, began tugging.

"I'm sorry. Stop it. Please."

"Come on son." He made his voice hard, subduing the struggling with strong, hard hands, fingers digging into the flesh.

""NO." Mulder's scream tore across Averman's ears. Meyers was there suddenly, but Averman shook his head, continued to hold the thin body. Mulder surged against him, eyes open now. 

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'll get her back. I promise. I promise, Dad. Please, Dad. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry I lost her. I'm sorry. Daddy, please. Please don't. Please." Mulder's eyes were fevered and incredibly bright. Averman felt his back stiffen, felt the words stab him, felt the chill run through his entire body. It hurt to breathe, hurt to keep holding the person who was staring at him, trapped in some nightmare he could not climb out of. Mulder kept up the sudden, incessant babbling. Averman did not know what he'd been expecting. Oh yes he did.

Violence and fighting and more screams and finally the sick, sad knowledge of despair as Rodriguez' needle stung and sent Mulder travelling into quiet complacency. Hands holding Mulder down while he struggled and kicked. He saw a man, confused, lost in memories that were a decade or more old, begging and pleading and betrayed. Oh God. He gathered the thin, sweaty, hot body up against him.

"It's okay," he muttered. Rocking Mulder in his arms. "It's okay. It's okay. I know. I know. It's okay. Nobody's going to hurt you."

The terrified babbling of a child went on and on and Averman answered it with soft words that meant nothing. He did not let Rodriguez come with the drugs, just held. This thing, this pain, this was not something to answer with trips into long, terrifying darkness. Averman knew that he could not answer it. Knew that it was nothing that any person should hold in their heart. He held the hair, wet with sweat, felt the fingers grip and twist the cotton of his white broadcloth shirt.

Boys in his patrols. They would be in such pain. And all you could do was hold them, because even the morphine did not drown out their pain. All you could do was get your cammos filthy with death and blood and waste. It was not enough. It was never enough. Eyes that shone even in death and the smell of flesh and of blood and it never, ever went away. No one escapes the long darkness. No one.

Mulder did not have much energy. This stand against Rodriguez and the crying sapped him quickly. It was not long before his fingers stopped twisting, before he stopped muttering things to a man who was a thousand miles away. Averman whispered encouragement to him. "Go to sleep. Shh. Go to sleep."

When Mulder was finally deep in the cocoon of exhaustion, Averman began disentangling the hands from his shirt, began to separate them, tried not to think of the blood indelibly staining his shirt. He found that his own nose was stuffy. Damn travel. Must have changed altitudes. His eyes were runny too.

"Don't give him any more Thorazine. Not tonight," he told Rodriguez, as they stripped him. Meyers and Cooke were gone.

"Cooke couldn't handle it," Sam said bluntly, pulling off Mulder's shirt, lifting up the limp body so that Averman could pull the covers down on the bed. "Meyers left with him."

Averman nodded. Sam began cleaning Mulder up. He was crying as he started the flow of solution, as he taped the needle in with incredible amounts of tape.

Averman knew he had much to cry for and ignored the tears. For a friend who was gone into the darkness. For the loss of a friendship that could not survive this experience. For he loss of something intangible. Averman sat on the other bed, stared at the grey television screen. "I'll need to go down to the police station. You and Cooke come with me. We'll leave Meyers here with Mulder. Is there something besides Thorazine you can give him?" 

"Phenergan. He doesn't have diarrhea. So I could get some suppositories. No needles." Rodriguez retrieved a handkerchief. blew his nose. "But there are times we don't have any choice. We have to drug him."

Averman sighed. "Let's try this for twenty four hours. Just twenty four hours and then we'll regroup. No drugs unless he's going to hurt himself. And by hurting himself I mean he's doing something violent. Not that he might. Not that he has intentions. I mean he's got a knife or a gun or whatever. Meyers takes the clip out of his piece. No opportunities."

 

Mulder opened his eyes wearily, stared at the IV running into his arm, at the tape holding the needle in. He made a smacking noise as though trying to get spit back into his mouth, and pushed himself forward into a sit. Meyers moved quickly. "Come on. Lay back down."

Mulder stared at him, let Meyers put pillows under his head. "They've gone to see the body?"

"Mhm. How about some more Gatorade?"

"I am so sick of Gatorade. . ."

"There's some white grape juice and some apple juice," Meyers said, getting up. Sam had found a juice machine down by the ice and promptly bought five of the over priced cans.

"Grape," Mulder said.

Meyers opened the can for Mulder. Mulder's bandaged fingers held the can awkwardly, but he drank greedily, guzzling it down. "They take Cooke with them?"

"Yeah," Meyers said. "Averman said to make sure you knew. They're not going to give you any more Thorazine. Not for twenty-four hours."

Mulder closed his eyes. His shoulders slumped. Meyers hadn't even realized how tense Mulder was.

Meyers swallowed. "He said that. . .He said that. . .umm. . .it's conditional. If you umm . . ."

"If I get violent or unmanageable," Mulder said wearily. "And Rodriguez showed you how to mix the Valium Thorazine cocktail if I do." He smiled. "I'll try to be rational."

"Yeah, you do that. I ain't no fucking LPN," Meyers said, surprising them both. Mulder opened his eyes in pure amusement.

"Meyers, there may be hope for you yet. You keep that up and they'll promote you to Dee Cee."

Meyers smiled.

"Can you get me another shirt?" Mulder asked.

"I can do better." Meyers tossed him a Notre Dame sweatshirt. "Cooke's," he said, grinning.

Mulder opened his mouth to speak. Shut it. "I shoulda' known," he mumbled. Meyers untaped the IV, ran the bag and  
tubing through the sleeve of the shirt, down to Mulder, who tugged on the clothing with tired, numb hands.

"Oh." Meyers smiled wickedly. "Dr. Rodreguiz is going to talk to the local sheriff, see if he knows any of the pharmacists."

"Oh God." Mulder felt his genitals draw up.

"No more Thorazine, right?" Meyers shrugged. "They're going to try Phenergan suppositories."

Mulder's eyes narrowed. "Meyers, underneath that innocent exterior lies the soul of a sick puppy," he growled.

Continued in part 24..............

=====================================================================  
======

From: livengoo@tiac.net  
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative  
Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 24/41 NC-17  
Date: 14 Feb 1996 03:33:35 GMT

Oklahoma (Part 24/41)  
By Amperage and Livengoo  
Copyright October, 1995

International Readers: No third season spoilers  
Rating: NC-17 for language and violence

Fox Mulder and the X-Files are the creation and intellectual  
property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting. The  
FBI is the property of the US Government. Oklahoma and Louisiana  
and Texas belong to exactly who you think they'd belong to, and  
everything else belongs to Amperage and Livengoo.

__________________

The camera flashes strobed off the brushed aluminum and white enamel, leaving spots on Samuel Rodriguez' retinas. Spots of red and green, blurring the spots of copper-green iridescence that crawled and shifted to show patches of clean, scrubbed white bone. The sterile looks of the place could not soothe the atavistic terror that the sour smell of the insects sent shrilling through the air. Sam swallowed the lump in his throat. A whisk broom flicked in front of him, brushing several beetles back into the long drawer, and Sam's eyes snapped up to the withered, gray man who had found his charges gorged and in company that morning. Sam looked away and around. Familiar, laboratory fittings. Familiar sights and unfamiliar smells. He'd never asked where the supplies for his medical school had come from, and he wished whole-heartedly that he'd never learned. When he finally came back to the thin, drab face and colorless, sad eyes, he knew this little lab manager wished the same thing.

"I came in to do a little work." He indicated the bones of some innocuous animal that had been dead much longer than Jane Doe. His name tag said 'Fletcher.' "I saw the clothes. I check the bugs every day when I come in, but I didn't really expect. . . ."

He swallowed, brushed back more hard little dots of hunger. "Yousee, we use the carpet beetles to clean specimens. They'll eat everything down to the bone." He curled his lips in, biting them, eyes crinkled and face pulled up.

"And you saw the skeleton when you checked?" Sam already knew his answers, but this inoffensive man surely deserved more than to be dragged into the wake that Elijah left. Let him exorcise what he could and return to his models and reconstructions. Now he nodded, took a deep breath and tried to help.

"Yeah. I left everything, and called the police." He looked up, brown eyes drawn in his pale face. "Let me know when we can take the poor thing. . . " His eyes tracked the shifting blanket of the insects. Frito could hear the sound of those thousands and thousands of legs. And mandibles. A skittering, scritching noise that clenched the muscles under his skin in little spasms and lifted the hair on his body to bristle under his clothes. Fletcher swept the ravenous things back again, holding the tide to its tiny, rectangular cage.

"I will. Thank you Mr. Fletcher. I will." Kept his voice gentle, reluctantly studied the bones laid out in the long drawer. Her head must have rolled sideways when Elijah set her down. Sam could see the shattered bone at the back of her skull, knew that a small-caliber bullet would be found somewhere. Now, the white bone gleamed, and shiny carapaces glittered in the light, voracious and innocent of the evils of man.

Sam watched Fletcher slide the drawer shut. She had nothing left to lose, and could wait to leave the dark embrace of many, many, hard, little forms. Averman was across the room, as far as he could manage from the specimen drawers. He and Cooke were directing the Enid evidence teams who were gathering the poor things that were all that was left of what Marion had said was a beautiful, unloved girl.

Averman had a cheap, leather, patchwork purse emptied on a work table as Frito walked over to look. Rubber-gloved hands carefully opened a pretty, cloth billfold to find photographs of a slender, blonde girl whose tentative, brittle smiles seldom reached her eyes. Few friends. A family shot with a big man smiling stiffly into the lens, his arm around a small-boned, woman with a closed face. The blonde. Two young boys.

"He was right." Averman glanced up at Rodriguez' voice. "She was drop dead gorgeous."

The wry smile came slow and sad on the weathered face. "By now, did you really think he might be wrong?"

"I could hope. Easier to deal with delusions than clairvoyance. Anything in there look promising?"

"We know she's Adeena Wells, and we have her address." He carefully looked through business cards, ticket stubs, receipts crammed into the long compartment. Came back to look at one. "And we know she was supposed to meet with a counselor for something. Suicide hotline. That what you mean by promising?"

Sam nodded, worried his lip. "Think his connection in Social Services is still open? That seems like the most likely way he finds them. . . "

"Counseling services? Maybe. Hard to tell. You'd have to subpoena confidential records to track that. I've got Tyler on that, but it's going to take time." His frustration showed in the tight shake of his head. "You heard from Taylor yet on the lab work?"

The sudden twist of cold, hopeless dread knotted Sam's bowels. "No. I need to use one of the phones, but I didn't. . . " He looked around. Drew a shaky breath. "I didn't want to call in front of the crowd. I'll use the phone in the back office." 

Averman watched, sympathetic. The doctor seemed to pull in on himself as he walked over, talked with Fletcher. When he vanished into a cubicle against the back wall, Averman turned back to seeing that the Enid team bagged evidence the way they were supposed to, instead of the way they saw on TV.

 

The office was airless and smelled of dust and burned popcorn. The phone rang perhaps five times. Sam waited for an answering machine to pick up, and was almost surprised when a human answered.

"Dr. Taylor?"

"Let me get him. . . " The young voice shouted for "granddad," came back to ask Sam to wait. He watched the second hand jump across a clockface on the messy desk in front of him. Glanced at requisitions for formaldehyde, cleaners, dissection supplies. Footsteps and the hollow scrape as the other phone was lifted. Taylor's voice.

"Hello?"

"Dr. Taylor, it's Sam Rodriguez. . . "

"Yes, doctor." He could hear a smile now, welcoming. "Good timing. The lab called about twenty minutes ago. They have more tests they want to run, but they got the first results back."

"How do they look?" Sam didn't quite cross his fingers or breathe a prayer.

The smile was gone from Taylor's voice when he answered. Puzzlement stained his tones. "They're. . . odd. The white count is somewhat elevated, but nothing like what I'd expect with the fever you described. *Nothing* like it. High adrenaline levels, and high levels of pyrogens, but no specific infection they could identify. I've been in my library trying to find anything that would make sense with that kind of result. Unless the path lab comes up with something strange. . ."

Sam swallowed against the nerves, the apprehension. "I was trying to think of anything myself. Urinary tract infection, pyelonephritis, some kind of virus or bacteria. . . "

"They looked. You'd see a lot more aggressive immune response for all of that. Even with that one everybody's so worried about. . . "

"AIDS?"

"Yeah. They haven't done Western Blot yet, but the cell counts don't look like it. They don't look like anything that makes any sense."

"God." Sam rubbed his face. "Non-disease specific fever. What would that be?"

"Tumor, maybe. That was all I could come up with. Something that involves the hypothalamus."

"Jesus. What would I look for on that?"

"Well, elevated fear response maybe. Or any abnormal fear response. . . Sam, if I were you I'd get that friend of yours into the nearest big hospital and start running a full diagnostic."

"Believe me, as soon as I can that's exactly what I want to do. This whole mess has been sudden onset and we just weren't prepared. . . "

"Yeah. Look, I'll check everything I have here, and put one of my medical students on research tomorrow. And the pathology lab should have more details for us by then. It'll be Monday and they won't be on the skeleton crew anymore. How does your man look?" He sounded worried.

"Not great, but we're getting fluids into him. I'll need to see how he's doing tonight. . . "

"Yeah. You keep me up on him, and I'll do whatever I can to help. And. . . how bad was this one? You said it was a girl."

Sam gulped with sudden queasiness. "I can't tell if it was bad for her. I think it probably wasn't, but the bastard didn't leave enough to tell." Taylor's horrified silence spoke more than he could have said. "Look, I'll call back tomorrow, in the afternoon. I've got your home, office and beeper so I should be able to reach you." Sam heard the weary, dragging tones in his own voice.

"I'll listen out for you. You take care, okay?"

"Yeah. Thanks, Taylor."

"Hey, professional courtesy and real courtesy. No trouble at all, Rodriguez." He set the phone down softly, without a click, and stared at the desk. Ran back what Taylor had told him and shivered. Turned back to face Adeena Wells and her death.

 

'Let us go then, you and I. . . '

"Sit here, son." Momma looked tired, but smiled at Dadda. Big arms wrapped around her, around the shriveled thing in her arms. It was a long way to the floor, but he jumped down from the other bed. His leather shoes squeaked on the floor as he walked over, white sheets were stiff with starch. Pulled himself up to look at the whining thing in his mother's arms.

"She's beautiful." Dadda's voice was soft, hand cupping the reddish thing in his momma's arms. Fox frowned, breathed in the smell of milk and antiseptics and momma. Dadda glanced up at him. "She's your baby sister, Fox. You have to help take care of her when she comes home."

He wasn't sure he wanted a little sister. He had a bear, wasn't that enough? He tried to climb up on the side of the bed so he could see more clearly, braced himself. Didn't catch the tired look on momma's face, or the frown in dadda's eyes.

"Can I name her?"

"Her name is Samantha, Fox. Now get down and go behave." Dadda's voice had that snap, and the baby sister started to wail at  
the sound.

He felt a hand on his shoulder that wasn't dadda's now. . .

"I'm not to talk to strangers. . . " The odd shift, seeing her here, small and raw, then the light and the hand still wasn't dadda's, but he knew it wasn't a stranger's either.

'What we have written is not a story of detection,  
Of crime and punishment, but of sin and expiation.  
It is possible that you have not known what sin  
You shall expurgate, or whose, or why. It is certain  
That the knowledge of it must precede the expiation.' 

Strappings, and the welts that lasted for hours. Sarah had welts like that. Adeena had welts sometimes, but burns mainly. Her dadda was careful to leave no marks. He loved her after all, he'd never leave marks. Elijah was there, but far away and not clear, and Fox wasn't scared, like the last time. He didn't think Elijah could see him so clearly now. . .

'When you're alone in the middle of the night and you wake  
in a sweat and a hell of a fright  
When you're alone in the middle of the bed and you wake like  
someone hit you on the head  
You've had a cream of a nightmare dream and you've got the  
hoo-has's coming to you. . .  
And you wait for a knock and the turning of a lock for you  
know the handman's waiting for you.  
And perhaps you're alive  
And perhaps you're dead'

The television picture reflected in Mulder's glassy eyes as he startled awake. Blonde hair. He narrowed his eyes, blinked to clear away the blurs. Glanced over at Meyers. The kid was reading a book on gender and criminality. Mulder tried to make out the title, found his tired, creaky voice.

"He thinks women don't commit as many crimes, and wonders why?"

Meyers winced as his head snapped up from his reading. Mulder grinned drily, imagining the sudden sharp pain that kind of move would cause. "I didn't know you were awake. . . "

"I think I've slept enough for the next five years." He pulled the blankets around him and wiped the damp hair back off his forehead, but he wasn't feeling quite so cold now. Cooke's sweatshirt was thick and comfortable, and the pounding in his head didn't quite make his teeth ache anymore.

"Do you want anything?" Meyer was half out of his chair, solicitous and watchful.

"You mean do I want anything besides the needle out of my arm and a ticket out of Oklahoma?" Mulder worked himself up into a curled ball, arms wrapped around knees. "Yeah. I want to know what Averman and Frito found at the medical supply place. Have they called in?"

Meyers shook his head. Mulder briefly wondered if Meyers would lie about that. Decided the kid would probably blush when he lied. Glanced back at the IV and grinned. More than half empty and Meyers wasn't going to be putting a needle in his arm. Maybe wishes did come true. Meyers looked up again as Mulder pulled the bag loose from the tape, and let his legs slide off the side of the bed. Sort of half on his feet and waiting as Mulder hesitated, let the brief dizziness stabilize before he stood.

"If you want anything I can get it, you don't have to. . ."

"There are plenty of guys in DeeCee who love having their dicks held when they pee, Meyers, but I can take care of my meat on my own." The kid blushed, but he grinned too.

"Guess I'm lucky you got sick and not Cooke, then." Mulder had to lean against the wall, and the laughter hurt his head and his bruised ribs, but it felt good. Took his leak and washed the sweat off his face one-handed, holding his IV like a cheap copy of the Statue of Liberty. The face that looked back from the mirror was pale and gaunt, except for the dark streak of bruise and scraped skin down one cheek. His eyes were still too bright, but he could see the edges coming back, the focus that Thorazine had blurred. And, from the corner of his eye, he saw a quick scurry of brown shells and white bones. Blonde hair. Shut his eyes tight.

The whisper of many feet was slowly drowned by the whisper of many voices. . .

'I had not thought death had undone so many.'

'And whatever happens began in the past, and presses hard on  
future.  
The agony in the curtained bedroom. . .  
Gathers in to itself all the voices of the past, and projects  
them into the future.

Mulder swallowed and leaned back against the door. The voice of exhaustion and fever and dreams that could reach into the waking world sang. It was fainter without the drugs, but he hadn't slipped free. All he could do was listen.

'There are hours when there seems to be no past or future,  
Only a present moment of pointed light  
When you want to burn. When you stretch out your hand  
To the flames. They only come once,  
Thank God, that kind. . .Perhaps there is another kind. . .'

He shook his head, pulled his arms close, almost hugging the damned IV to keep from dropping it. Felt the door shake as Meyers knocked, and knew he must be calling. Summoned the voice to reassure him, even as other voices spoke to Mulder, drowning Meyers, refusing not to be heard.

\--No more. I want no more, let me go. . . I am no prophet -  
and here's no great matter. . .

'You are the consciousness of your unhappy family,  
Its bird sent flying through the purgatorial flame.  
Indeed it is possible. You may learn hereafter,  
Moving alone through flames of ice, chosen  
To resolve the enchantment under which we suffer.'

No sounds reached him for so long, until finally the sound of Meyers calling, frightened, and the clatter as he worked the locked door insinuated itself through the hollow silence that the voices left. Mulder sighed and pulled himself upright, glaring at his own pale image in the mirror, turned and pulled open the door.

Meyers nearly fell through as the door opened under his hand.

"Jesus, Meyers. If you want it that bad, go hire it." Mulder knew his voice was as thin as the joke, but it seemed to reassure Meyers.

"Just don't do that again, okay? I thought you'd passed out in there."

Mulder snorted, braced one hip on the window sill and stared out into the late afternoon sun. "You're just afraid you'll have Sam on your ass. . . "

"Damn right I am! Look, why don't you just lie back down, I'll get the IV taped back up again. You look pretty shaky. . . "

"I'm fine." The light left blind spots in front of his eyes when he looked back to Meyers. "Look, the IV is almost empty. I'm actually feeling a hell of a lot better." True, but relative. As his vision cleared he could see Meyers' suspicious look. Had to grin, it was so incongruous on that smooth, oval, boy-scout face. "Give me a chance to earn my keep, Meyers. I just want to see the site. It's not like I'll be chasing bad guys through the streets." 

"Agent Mulder, you're still running a fever. You weave when you walk. You look like hell and I don't need to get reamed by Averman and Rodriguez."

Mulder felt his eyes narrow. "If you people could do this without me, I'd already be on a plane out of this damned state. Believe me, I want to catch this bastard faster than you do. The fastest way to get him is to let me do my job. That means I need to see the murder site."

"Dr. Rodriguez. . . "

"Said to drug me if I got violent or out of control." Mulder cut him off. "I'm not either. I'm trying to do my job. Now, I need you to drive me out there. Meyers," he softened it a little, "just drive me. The murder site is a lot less likely to harm me than sitcoms."

The kid still shook his head, back and forth, stubborn set to his jaw. "They'll brief you when they get back. They said you need the rest. . . "

"Fuck that!" Mulder caught himself, got his temper back very carefully, seeing Meyers glance at the bottles and the needle Rodriguez had left for him. Bit down on his lip and just breathed.

Meyers was too jumpy, too ready to drug him down again. Losing his temper would be as bad as telling him he heard Eliot in the bathroom just now.

"Look, the IV is almost empty." He dangled the limp, plastic thing. Elijah's not going to sit around waiting for me to get better before he picks up the next one. Another kid's going to die, maybe worse than this one did. I'm not going back to sleep knowing that, but I need you to drive me out there so I can do my job and try to catch that bastard. No digging under trees, Meyers. No lifting or strenuous activity. Just let me see it, see why he picked it. He's trying to tell us things, Meyers." Mulder found himself walking back into the room, sketching things in thin air, words and images that he couldn't quite put into words.

"The victims are getting older, Meyers, and from better and better economic classes. He's swinging between secular and religious imagery. Which piece of Eliot did he choose for this one? Maybe he didn't even need to leave a poem for this one, I don't know. . . It's pretty damned clear imagery, what he did to this one." He was working it through for himself now, not even trying to reach Meyers anymore. He could feel the hunt again, could feel the skeleton of Elijah's mind, feel the framework of his beliefs.

"I need to see that site. I need to see what he saw when he took her there." Sat and worried his lip. Was startled when Meyers walked over and took the IV away. When he pushed Mulder back up against the head of the bed, however, and taped the IV back up to the headboard all the energy and excitement seeped away. Frustration tasted bitter in his mouth. Meyers handed him another fucking bottle of juice.

"I tell you what. Dr. Rodriguez is planning to call around seven-thirty. If he says it's fine, I'll drive."

"Jesus. Now I need a note from my doctor to go out and play."

Continued in part 25...........

 

Subject: Oklahoma (5/8) NC-17  
Date: 14 Feb 1996

Oklahoma (Part 25/41)  
By Amperage and Livengoo  
Copyright October, 1995

International Readers: No third season spoilers  
Rating: NC-17 for language and violence

Fox Mulder and the X-Files are the creation and intellectual  
property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting. The  
FBI is the property of the US Government. Oklahoma and Louisiana  
and Texas belong to exactly who you think they'd belong to, and  
everything else belongs to Amperage and Livengoo.

_______________________

Despite his best efforts, Mulder went back to sleep before 7:30. Meyers watched the agent drift off, watched him fight it with movement around the bed, with focusing on Sunday night television, with playing mental games. Like his sister's kids when they didn't want to admit they were tired. But finally Mulder's mouth hung open, the tenseness left his body.

"How is he?" Rodriguez' voice was distant over the phone, disembodied.

"Well he's asleep right now," Meyers said. "He wanted to see the site. He's not. . .he's pretty lucid. He's weak, but he acts like maybe he's feeling better."

Rodriguez sighed on the other end. He wanted to deny Mulder, wanted the analyst in bed until they could fly back to DC and hospitals that didn't see a lot of rodeo injuries. "Don't wake him. If we're lucky he'll sleep until morning, then he can go down with everyone. He down anything?"

"Two cans of juice."

Rodriguez' sigh was relieved. "Look, we don't know what's causing Mulder's problems It could be something neurological. Watch him, anything odd at all you get me."

Meyers swallowed. "Yeah."

"Okay. I'm going to get the body situated. Take some pictures. We'll be in in an hour or so. You want anything to eat?"

"Yeah. Whatever."

"Okay. Umm, we'll bring Mulder an icee or something and more juice." A voice in the background. "I gotta go."

Meyers hung up the phone, stared at Mulder's sleeping figure.

 

 

They came back just as Mulder's IV bag was giving up it's final gurgle. Tried to be quiet, Cooke handed Meyers one of the bags of burgers. "God, I hate small towns on Sundays," he muttered, sitting on the highboy. Averman sat beside him, pulled out his own sandwich. "We're lucky anything was open this late on a Sunday," he said conversationally.

"God, you're lucky you missed that site," Cooke told Meyers while they watched Rodriguez pull out another IV bag.

"Hmm?" Meyers said, trying to squeeze ketchup out of the fast food packets onto the spread burger wrapper between his legs on the floor.

"Momma and Step-Daddy come down, all hysterical, in their good church clothes. Da-dee is on the town coun-cil. Momma is the closest thing they've got to a Jun-ior Leaguer." Cooke took a bite of burger, chewed contemptuously.

Mulder's eyes fluttered open. He stared confused a few minutes. "I thought. . .Meyers you said we'd. . ."

"You were asleep," Sam said quietly. "You weren't going out there tonight anyway."

"I'm not a fucking invalid." Mulder pushed up against the bed, made no comment as Sam changed out IV's.

Sam sighed.

"Just wait until the morning," Averman said, taking a sip of his diet coke. "And you can go see it."

"Fuck it. Elijah's out there," Mulder said, swallowing. "He's out there and he's going to do it over and over again. We're close to catching him. Right now we're close."

"And right now, best medical opinion is to get you posthaste into a major hospital," Rodriguez replied, getting up. "Hope you like Black Cherry." He handed Mulder an icee. "We can't isolate the cause of the fever."

"Fuck it. I'm feverish because Elijah is out there," Mulder said, pulling the paper from his straw. "I won't get better until he's caught."

Rodriguez took a deep breath. "Francis, look, you. . ."

"No. You look, I *need* to see that site. I need to know what Elijah knew."

"Oh right. With the IV in your arm and you can't walk twenty feet without keeling over," Sam muttered sarcastically. He took a deep breath and tried again. "Marion, please. Stop arguing. If we have to carry you out of that lab, you'll go straight to University of Oklahoma Hospital. I would much rather postpone the trip and make it a hospital in DC where there are people you know."

Marion stared at him, eyes suddenly bright. He stared a long time. "It's just the damn case. That's all it is. I'm feeling better since you stopped fucking me over with the drugs."

"If it's just a reaction to the drugs, then you still need a hospital."

"I was doing just fine until you and Averman stuck your noses into things. I've been dreaming for a year and a half now. And I was doing just fine." Each word distinct and angry, spat out like the words were venom. "Just fucking fine. And then you come along with all your fucking drugs and your fucking, overweight, hispanic psychiatrist and try to tell me that *I'm* crazy. I never was crazy. If crazy is knowing who killers are and how they think and what goes on inside their skulls then we need to comb the locked wards for new FBI agents, because if I weren't here, if they'd sent someone else, we both fucking, fucking well know that Elijah would still be five steps ahead of everyone. You'd have no idea what was going on." Mulder pushed up against the headboard.

Averman stood, having had enough of this tirade. "Agent Mulder," his voice barked. "You are *way* outta line."

"Am I?" Mulder's voice was insolent, angry. "Am I?" He pounded his untaped arm against the bed.

Averman took a deep breath. Expelled it. Moments like this were ones he'd settled with Lisa and Chris with extended timeouts. Time outs? He'd called it sitting in the corner, staring at the wall. "If you want to be treated like a working, functioning member of this team, you damn well will act like it. I am your supervisor." He felt Cooke and Meyers stare at their sandwiches, pretend not to be there.

"And right now, according to the reports Rodriguez got back from your blood sample, you are probably one very sick young man. The prudent thing to do would be to ship you to Oklahoma City and let a team of doctors poke and prod you. However, there is, as you so profoundly pointed out, a serial killer on the loose and you are the best link the FBI has in capturing this man. But the FBI has lost links before and still caught their man." Averman paused to collect his thoughts.

"You cannot walk very far without collapsing, and you still need to be on IV's. Those two facts make it difficult logistically for you to see the site tonight." Another pause, this one for effect. "Now. I made copies," his voice dripped sarcasm, "of all the preliminary work and I brought polaroids of the crime scene." Mulder looked up from his perusal of the icee in his hands. His face was pale and the circles under his eyes were like smudges of coal, cheek scraped raw and bruised. He was gaunt and a thin sheen of sweat covered his skin. Averman let the sarcasm drop out of his voice, staring at the bright, sad eyes. God. The kid could be dying. Averman wondered how he could go to the funeral and see the parents, knowing what he knew about the kid's past, knowing what he knew about how much pain they had let their son grow up in. He shook the image away. Rodriguez had also said they didn't know *what* it was.

"Look, you can go in the morning. You'll be a lot more hydrated. Your fever's obviously not as high. I know it's important to catch Elijah, but I won't kill you as a sacrifice for him," Averman finished. "Get it through your skull." 

Mulder swallowed. He stared at Averman just a moment, acknowledging the older man. Then he nodded. "Yes sir," he  
muttered, giving up.

 

Mulder managed to stay awake for a couple of hours. Averman had claimed the room with the connecting door, Rodriguez right next door. Mulder sprawled across his bed, reviewed the files Averman had brought him. Stared at the skeleton. "Averman?" he called through the open door.

Averman rushed over, toothbrush in his mouth.

"Finish your oral hygiene," Mulder said. "Wouldn't want to be accused of making your mouth unpalatable for some pretty young ho's cunt."

Averman shot him the finger and returned to spit. He was back in a few minutes. "Whatcha' want?" he asked, wiping his mouth. 

"Tell me about the parents?"

"Umm. . .they came in dressed for evening worship."

"The locals hadn't notified them?"

"Hadn't gone through the purse," Averman replied.

Mulder nodded. "Small town idiots. . ." He thought a moment.

"Didn't it strike anyone odd that these people have what. . .a twelve year old?"

Averman nodded, sitting down on the edge of Mulder's bed.

"A twelve year old daughter who's disappeared and they went to Sunday church like nothing was wrong?"

Averman grinned. "Oh yeah, I asked in my most concerned, parental support voice."

"And?"

"And the stepdaddy informed me that Adeena often spent time with her friends."

"Uh-huh," Mulder muttered.

"They're locally prominent. Mom's as close to a junior leaguer as they come in a city like this. Dad's on the City Council."

Mulder nodded. Put his head back against the headboard. "This doesn't make sense."

"What are you talking about?" Averman asked.

"He should have taken care of her body in some way that left evidence of the incest. He compares this girl to Sarah. This girl *is* his Sarah, at least in his mind. And then he disposes of the body so that no physical evidence is left." Mulder closed his eyes, rubbed his face. "Doesn't make the least fucking bit of sense." He paused. "Elijah knows I'm out there," he said softly. 

"He knows. He's trying to preach to me, but I. . .I don't know what he's saying. You don't have any poetry. Did he leave any?"

Averman shook his head. "Not that we could find."

Mulder nodded, considered this fact, stared at his bandaged hands. "My family's lived on the Vineyard for a long, long time," he said quietly. "When I was little my great aunt Miranda would take me out to the family cemetery and point out all my ancestors. It was an old cemetery. Most of the graves were from the 1800's. It didn't scare me, playing where all my relatives were buried. That never scared me." He paused, eyes distant. "There aren't many fresh plots. Did you know that? Most family cemeteries like ours are closed. You have to go to the mainland to get buried. The cemeteries aren't allowed to grow anymore. They say it's because of ecological concerns. My dad used to say it's because of tourists. But Aunt Miranda had three plots that were still clear. I was her favorite. I have a plot." Mulder rambled calmly, lost in family politics and family wars.

Something in Averman's gut twisted. He wanted to ask a question, to snap Mulder out of this macabre mood. He swallowed and said nothing.

"Elijah. . .he's trying to preach to me. He wants me to understand. He's younger than I am, maybe by a couple years. But he sees us as brothers. . .I think. . ." Mulder paused, picked at the bandage. Silence filled the room. Averman struggled not to speak, not to fill the silence with inane noise that would drive off the fear rising and twisting and filling him so that he could not breathe.

"Is it a dream or something else  
When the surface of the blackened river  
Is a face that sweats with tears?

For the dull brain, the sharp desires  
And the quick eyes of Woolly Bear.  
There is no relief but in grief.  
O when will the creaking heart cease  
When will the broken chair give ease?"

Mulder's voice was low. "He lost his family. I guess, in a way, I lost mine too. He came from Massachusetts. My father graduated from Amherst. My mother was at Boston College a couple of years before she met my dad and quit to go with him to his first posting in Europe. His mother went to Radcliffe and his father went to Harvard. Graduated Harvard Divinity School. They all had their entire lives ahead of them then. But all the promises of goodness. . ." Mulder trailed, not wishing to take his analogy any further. "At night, when he closes his eyes, he can hear the cold Atlantic. He can see the whales and the dim grey days of winter. He's never been back, but it's all he thinks about. If I die, and I'm buried there, I won't mind. Elijah knows I come from the Vineyard. He knows the salt air will slide across the grass that grows over my grave." Mulder looked up. "Even if I couldn't get into the Mulder cemetary, I don't want to be buried in Arlington. I don't want to be lost. There are cemetaries in New Bedford and Chatham and even Boston is an old whaling town. My mom and dad have plots in Boston."

Averman swallowed, took Mulder's shoulders in his hands, turned the younger man to face him. "What the fuck are you trying to tell me?"

"I didn't see it, because I was lost in dreams," Mulder said, mind suddenly clear. "I was trying to preach his word, his gospel. The drugs. . . I couldn't think. . . He did this one neatly, for us. There's Eliot there, some dumb fuck just lost it for us." He shook his head. "I don't. . . I'm not sick, Averman. There's nothing wrong with me except what the fire brought to me." He moved his hands inward, swinging the IV line. "I only just now understood, only now just realized it. He killed Adeena as a way of putting Sarah to sleep. Doing for her what he could not do for Sarah. I'm next. He'll send me to Jesus, let my body go back to what he remembers as Edenic--Massachusetts.

"With glory and derision,  
Light upon light, mounting the saints' stair.  
Not for me the martyrdom, the ecstacy of thought and prayer.  
Not for me the ultimate vision.  
Grant me thy peace.  
(And a sword shall pierce thy heart,  
Thine also).  
I am tired with my own life and the lives of those after me,  
I am dying in my own death and the deaths of those after me.  
Let thy servant depart,  
Having seen thy salvation."

Mulder swallowed, staring at something only he could see, preternaturally calm. "If you'd kept me on the Thorazine, I never would have seen it," he said softly. "I would have just slid into the darkness. You said that. . .that you wouldn't let me be a sacrifice for Elijah. That's what. . .I guess that's. . .But Elijah's. . .he knows the facts are distributed widely now. And I'm from Massachusetts. And I'm the only one who understands  
what's going on. . . He's ready now. Ready to kill me and to die."

Mulder rubbed hard at his eyes. "Sarah's body is clean. Sarah has escaped. Now it is time for the prophet to withdraw and take his servant with him."

Continued in part 26...............

=====================================================================  
======

From: livengoo@tiac.net  
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative  
Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 26/41 NC-17  
Date: 15 Feb 1996 06:05:29 GMT

Oklahoma (Part 26/41)  
By Amperage and Livengoo  
Copyright October, 1995

International Readers: No third season spoilers  
Rating: NC-17 for language and violence

Fox Mulder and the X-Files are the creation and intellectual  
property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting. The  
FBI is the property of the US Government. Oklahoma and Louisiana  
and Texas belong to exactly who you think they'd belong to, and  
everything else belongs to Amperage and Livengoo.

_____________________

"Mulder. Mulder, listen to me." Averman swallowed, feeling the ice that wrapped through his bowels sent shivers along his nerves. Looked into dark eyes that let no light back out. "I need you to work this through with me. You're telling me that Elijah's coming for you next."

Mulder nodded, calm and definite, still seeing the long dunes and grasses of the Vineyard. The slate and blue waters where the warm Gulf Stream cut through the icy, northern sea, off the coast of Massachusetts.

'And men who turned towards the light and were known of the light  
And led men from light to light, to knowledge of Good and Evil.  
But their light was ever surrounded and shot with darkness  
As the air of temperate seas is pierced by the still dead  
breath of the Arctic Current;  
And they came to an end, a dead end.'

"Mulder, how does he know you?"

The eyes came back from a place nearly two thousand miles away. A perfectly reasonable smile answered Averman's fears. "We've been all over the news. He'd have a hard time not knowing I'm from Massachusetts. Particularly after Foster's sermon this morning." Puzzled frown as Averman shook his head.

"No. You said he only takes abused children. And we both know he only takes the ones who've been saved. He hasn't yet taken a child too young, or not Christian. I don't have any doubt you're right about that. So why you? He won't just break his pattern, Mulder. . . "

The agent's face closed up, went tight and professional. And that scared Averman more than the lost stare focused on sea grasses and the offshore breeze. The AIC couldn't leave it there. "Massachusetts he knows, but how does he know you were beaten? How does he know if you've been saved? You could give me a reason for knowing about each of the kids, Mulder. When we get the subpoenas I'm sure we'll find a connection, just like you predicted." Averman stopped, frowned, feeling the edges of something. Stared long and hard at the analyst, who'd withdrawn into a burrow of blankets. With his eyes shut and his thin, pale face he looked terribly young. Like he'd looked the first afternoon at Social Service, gesturing across his own chest. . .

"You said abused kids don't wear banners, Mulder, but maybe they do. You seem to know the ones who are too quiet or too well-behaved." Averman could hear the excitement pick up in his own voice. "And Rodriguez and I spotted you. . . " He looked away from the man, worked his hands on his knees. Couldn't sit still. Paced to the window and resisted the urge to look out and see if anyone was out there. Mulder was watching him now.

"I need you to think back and try to remember. Go over every fucking thing you can remember. You haven't been on television, no interviews. None of that shit. But if Elijah watched you long enough he'd probably see about what Sam and I saw. Fucking hell! He could have been right on top of us and we'd never have seen him. But you might have picked up on it. . . "

"So you want me to tell you if I remember anyone watching me? Would that be before or after you started fucking me over with the Haldol and Thorazine?"

"I don't care, so long as you can get an answer for me." He stood and watched the agent a moment. He'd been right each time, was probably right this time, God help them. He had to have seen someone, or something. The alternative just didn't bear thinking about. "Sleep on it, Mulder. And tomorrow, when we go to the site, you keep an eye out."

He'd talk to Rodriguez about it in the morning. Make sure both he and Meyers knew they had a potential stalking situation on their hands. Cooke would be useless until they had to work up press releases on the whole mess. Averman ran back through his own logic, and over what Mulder had said. Scary still, but now he could make sense of it. Now he had a place to start. Through the open connecting door he could hear even, exhausted breathing, and let himself drift into the dark finally, hoping for a calm night.

 

Sleep came quickly and inevitably, rolling in waves over him.   
Under the surface, in the dark, chimeras and fantasies called, and   
a voice beyond them.

'Our gaze is submarine, our eyes look upward  
And see the light that fractures through the unquiet water.  
We see the light but see not whence it comes.  
O Light Invisible, we glorify Thee!'

Mulder moaned in his sleep, and rolled. He pulled a pillow close, all unconscious, and clung. In the light he saw his mother and sister, and the water washed around them. He shivered, and looked for his father but could not find him.

"Hello, Fox. I knew you remembered it.

'I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each."

He wanted not to know the next words. Sleeping lips shaped a whisper. . . "I do not think that they will sing to me."

And other lips replied, in a voice that was not his. . .

'We have lingered in the chambers of the sea  
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown. . . "

Fox frowned, feeling the sand under his feet. The sun glittered in the waves when he looked out. His sister's brown hair shone when he turned to look behind him.

"Woke to my hearing from harbor and neighbor wood   
And the mussel pooled and the heron  
Priested shore  
The morning beckon  
With water praying and call of seagull and rook. . . "

In the dark, a young man cried for the sea he barely remembered. Walked next to a companion on a beach he'd never known. A girl with long, gold hair, and a woman who taught him. .  
.

'Love is most nearly itself  
When here and now cease to matter.  
We must be still and still moving  
Into another intensity  
For a further union, a deeper communion  
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,  
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters  
Of the petrel and the porpoise.  
In my end is my beginning.

The chill breeze off the water called through the grass and whispered in the voice of the sand but Fox barely felt it against the heat and the ache of the light in his head.

Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,   
Time held me green and dying  
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

And the light hurt his eyes as his own startled gasp caught in his throat. And it was quiet. He lay so still, and could hear Averman snoring. Feel the faint trickle of sweat as the fever broke again. His head ached when he stood, and the light from the bathroom door hurt his eyes, but the water felt cool and good in his hands and soothed him. His feet left the silence whole again, as he padded back to his bed. A good natured sneer as he taped the IV back to the head of the bed, and curled into warmth and safety again, in the dark.

When he finally slipped under again, the sea did not lap at his dreams, and when human voices woke him, he did not drown.

 

"Are you sure you feel all right?"

"Meyers, quit hovering." Sunlight cut through the windows to shine off the floor where Adeena Wells' clothes had lain in a neatly folded pile. The aluminum and enamel laid grid patterns on the dark lenses of Mulder's glasses, eerie indoors. But the light hurt his eyes, today. Ached, and echoed, and he kept trying to see it move.

Mulder pulled himself out of the tired slouch, and turned to the specimen drawers. His hand scratched idly at the bruise and the bandaids Sam had plastered on when he'd finally pulled the needle loose. Mulder wasn't looking forward to being punctured again.

The analyst led Meyers around the room, just looking at first. Fletcher was there. The hair that had been gray under fluorescents was colorless floss caught in the sun behind him. The Special Agent squinted from behind his lenses, ignored his younger colleague, and stared into the drawer where Elijah had cleaned his dead and laid their souls to rest. Swallowed and shuddered at the shifting mass of carpet beetles. At the sudden sense that the tiles beneath his feet were not so solid or firm.

"Thank you." He was happier when Fletcher had shut the drawer. Chrome. Aluminum. Enamel. Smooth and cold and clinical under his fingertips. Smells of death and jungle and ether and solvents. He shivered and remembered doctors and nurses and the smell of death and illness. And salt. And sand.

"Agent Mulder, you look like shit." Meyers' voice was low and trying to be assertive. "Dr. Rodriguez is going to kill me if I let you wear yourself out." He could see his own reflection, chewing its lip with worry, then Mulder's blank expression lifted in a thin smile. If it reached his eyes, there was no way to tell.

"All right, mom. We can go. You can tell Frito I left before they had to carry me out." Shook his head as the kid puffed out a sigh of relief, and tried to put a hand under his elbow. "Save it for old ladies in Florida, Meyers. You're not my type." No spring or lightness to Mulder's step, but he managed the car without passing out or collapsing. When he dropped into the passenger seat, Meyers allowed himself to hope for an uneventful morning after all.

"So, did you see anyone, Meyers?" Spooky had let his head drop back on the headrest, and Meyers could see his eyes shut under the glasses. The scraped bruise was dark on pale skin, from where he'd fallen the day before.

Startled scan around the parking lot. No one really visible, but with the light that bounced from gleaming metal and glass, he'd be hard put to tell. "I. . . "

"Take a good look. My head hurts too much, but Averman's going to want details. No one sitting in cars? No one on the street who's not doing the only sane thing and trying to get out of the sun?" The words were steady, but drained. Spooky heaved a sigh, and let his head roll to look at Meyers. Somehow, he knew the hazel eyes were open now. Shivered in the heat.

"I really don't see anyone, Agent Mulder."

Got an answering snort. "Don't worry. I didn't really think you would." It was a good idea, but Elijah wasn't there. He didn't need to see him. He never had.

'To be conscious is not to be in time.'

'Human kind  
Cannot bear very much reality.'

 

 

"He said that? Jesus Christ, we're fucked." Sam Rodriguez rubbed his eyes. Six unbroken hours of sleep had felt like heaven, but it just wasn't enough. "And you bought it."

"I have enough trouble with Mulder yanking my dick, Rodriguez. I don't need you jumping my case, too." Averman's voice was mild, but the set of his jaw was tense and nervous. "Waiting for Tyler makes me feel like the ugly girl who wants to go to the prom." He sat back and idly dragged a french fry through ketchup. He knew it would take time to get through the records back in Ashton and in Oklahoma City, but Tyler could hit something the first time out, or the fifth, or the hundredth. Cooke could sit and wait for the afternoon, but for now it was Averman's turn.

"Look, do you expect Tyler to call anytime soon?"

Averman shook his head. "Why?"

"I need to get hold of Taylor, but I want to see Marion when he comes in. I want to see him before he gets a chance to collect himself." The AIC turned the phone to face Rodriguez. Watched tea colored fingers punch out a quick code.

Sam caught the phone next to his ear with his shoulder, pulling paper and pen close, and waited. Averman watched him, saw him wait, tapping the pen in time with the ringing of the phone, tracing the edge of the pad with an unconscious gesture. Saw the muscles flicker across his face as he straightened and drew a breath.

"Dr. Taylor, hello." The automatic, professional smile the listener can hear was on Sam's face. "They did?. . . Good. What did they. . .

Averman felt himself hunch forward as the professional smile became a faint, puzzled frown. Watched the pathologist jot down a series of figures, then review them, tapping the point of the pen at each one. Rodriguez' frown was slowly etching itself into his features. It seemed like he wrote forever, and he had moved onto the third sheet before he spoke again.

"You're sure of the leucocytes?. . . and the hematocrit?. . . The Western Blot? . . . " A brief sigh of relief lightened his features. Then his head came up suddenly. "They really think so? No. . . . No, I understand. It would certainly explain the heightened anxiety. . . And that's the best choice in the state?" The doctor's voice had suddenly gone flat and quiet. "Ostler. All right. . . If it comes to that, I'll be sure to ask for him. . . No, you've done more than . . ." His smile was faint and humorless. "No. Thank you. And I'll keep you apprised.. . . Good bye, Doctor. Thank you again."

Rodriguez put the phone back onto the cradle very, very carefully. It barely made a whisper of sound. Averman watched his impassive face and felt an odd twist of dread, and sympathy, and relief. Gave him long, long seconds to stare blankly at his notes and collect himself. The young man finally shook himself free,looked up at Averman.

"I really hate the fucking taco circuit." His voice was soft and disengaged.

"What did Taylor say?"

Rodriguez stared at him, hefting the pad and letting it flap in his hand. "He says. . . the lab results come up just about normal. Pyrogens elevated and every other damn thing they can think to test for is fucking, goddamned normal!" Flinched as the man spun and pitched the note pad into the wall. It thumped when it hit the floor, a few loose pages fluttering down after it. "Taylor's been to path and neuro and all they can come up with is a fucking tumor affecting the hypothalamus. God DAMN it! I hate the fucking state of Oklahoma and every fucking cow town that ever grew where some asshole took a shit."

Averman felt his face flush, but held his tongue and watched the doctor's back, seeing the tension of the muscles along his back and his neck. The tight, unhappy way he stood, muscles clenched and nothing to kick. Nothing to hit. It took what seemed like forever, but may have only been five minutes. When Rodriguez turned back his face was barely flushed. He dropped onto the bed and knit his fingers, hiding his chin and mouth behind steepled knuckles, eyes unfocused.

"Talk to me, Sam. What are you thinking?" The AIC kept his voice low, used the same tones he'd used to keep Mulder calm and thinking.

"I've let Marion corner me. I should have pushed him harder. . . I can't force treatment on a competent adult unless there's imminent harm. I also can't sit there and let him commit suicide, but I don't think a judge would find imminent harm here. Not yet." 

"I know he looks bad, but the fever's been dropping since we cut the Thorazine. If you can get his fluids back up to normal. . . "

Rodriguez was shaking his head. "No. This was sudden onset and the progression's been fast. If it's a tumor, like Taylor thinks, we've got to start testing and locate it fast."

"What about Elijah?" The old marine sat forward, elbows on knees, staring intently.

"He told you Elijah was stalking him now. Classic paranoid delusions. He's been suffering anxiety and fear responses since the onset of the fever. . . "

"Which is abating."

"So what, Averman? So what! He was going through a lot of the fear responses even before the fever. And the vomiting? And that show under the tent? He's been getting sicker and sicker since we flew in here, and I let him back me off! Fuck it." Sam's voice was a low snarl. Angry and dangerous.

"And he's been right every time." Calm, steady response.

"So he's a genius, Averman. Two-hundred IQ, or whatever the hell it is. Geniuses get sick too, and they get irrational and they die and I'm damned if I will just allow it to happen." 

"Round and round, Sam. Same old question. What are you going to do?"

The pathologist ground the heels of his hands into his eyes, pushed his fingers back through his black hair. When he finally spoke, his voice was soft and determined. "I'm going to give him a choice. He's got twenty-four hours. He thinks Elijah's that close, and he could be right, so he's got another day. Then he lets me ship him home and straight to Hopkins or GW, and a full round of testing. If he says no, I'll call in Guiterriez and we see about legally forcing him."

"Shit, Sam. That's coercion."

"He knows it. He's known that was the choice since this started. Averman, he's got the psych degree, he's been playing this off on us since day one. I cannot sit there and let him yank us around until it's too late to help him."

"Are you so sure you can get him declared incompetent? It looks spooky as hell, but he's been able to give solid reasoning for every call he's made."

Sam's eyes were hollow when he looked up. "After the fact. But now he's telling you Elijah knows about him, and is after him."

"If he's been tracking. . . "

"No. You suggested that to Mulder. If you ask him, I'll put hard cash down that he tells you Elijah divined it in a dream, or Eliot told him, or shit like that. He might have had reasons for most of it. I believe that, somehow, he must have seen stuff that triggered in his subconscious. But this last bit? No. No, I can't see any way he managed that. Excuse me. I need to go put a call in to Guiterriez. I think we need to prepare, just in case. Call me when they get in, will you?"

Averman watched him walk out, into the heat and the sun, and felt a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature in the room.

 

 

Meyers had shut up and let him rest, thank god. Mulder was glad to let the kid look around for Averman's evidence. The analyst just dropped his head against the rest and thought about what he'd seen.

Flashes of white, and chrome, and. . . the green highway sign for Oklahoma City? Ninety-eight miles to Oklahoma City. God, he'd be glad to see the last of this state. Glad to see the tall green of trees along the Potomac. Smell salt water off the Chesapeake, and see the sand and shingle beaches of. . . No. He wasn't remembering the Chesapeake, or the Eastern Shore. Mulder reached for the aluminum and chrome and white again, shutting away beaches where tropical currents cut through the icy, northern water, and old, whaling towns struggled through the twentieth century. The light was a throbbing ache behind his eyes, that burned in his teeth and his skull.

Chrome and enamel, scalpels and glass, but the smell of death and dust and God's own decay. Thousands on thousands of legs that skittered across skin, and a hunger that waited for man, and could only be held at bay. Never stopped. Never vanquished. He shivered, smelling chemicals and sickness, and his eyes flew open to see endless miles of open land, smeared here and there with asphalt and houses. Oklahoma City, ninety-eight miles. Green sign, nothing like the green of the coast, and the trees, and the grass on the beach or the ocean in the sun.

Miles of sere, dun grasslands slid past in the heat. Unconsciously, his eyes scanned, finding the trees nurtured by man, or clinging along the rare banks of streams. The radio slid from one song to another, all alike.

'Still. Will heat move  
Only through the mocking-bird  
Heard once? Still hills  
Wait. Gates wait. Purple trees,  
White trees, wait, wait,  
Delay, decay.

He swallowed in the heat that burned through the windshield and cut a sharp edge between light and dark. The cold breeze from the vents could only press that heat back in tiny currents, and chill the salt sweat that burned the scrape on his cheek. The car slowed, turned. The tiny, asphalt island shoving back the grass, but when the motor's growl died the heat still waited for them. 

Meyers pulled the door open, and Mulder flinched from the hot wall of air that crashed over him. Opened his own door, and let his feet fall to asphalt that shone soft, and liquid-black in the sun. So few steps to the shade and pale concrete. He forced himself upright and leaned against the burning metal of the car, breathing the air that had waited for them to come out of hiding, out of a car, or a room. Meyers was next to him, hand hovering by his elbow. Mulder pulled his mouth into a sour grin.

"I don't need a walker yet, Meyers. And I usually don't belly-flop on concrete if I'm not drugged, so go play with yourself. Hands off." The kid grinned back, shrugged. Looked around, probably trying to find spies and killers in the few shadows that could survive out here. One? Maybe. But the sun was overhead. Ghosts walked at midnight and noon, when the shadows wouldn't scare them. Mulder grinned like a skull and walked the few steps that could take him to cool, dark shade again.

Averman was on the phone, acknowledged them with a look, and went back to repeating the names of women. Radcliffe, at last. Finally, things might fall into place and he could stop fighting so hard. Sam must have been watching for them. He was on their heels as they found the bubble of chilled air that hit the sweat on Mulder's face and sides. The hand in the middle of his back was cool.

"Let's get you on your back. You look like you're about to keel over anyway."

"Thanks, is that a formal diagnosis? Or do you just want to get me into bed?"

"You been having hot dreams again, Marion?"

"Thought you preferred blondes, Sam." He grunted as he dropped back against the pillows. Shivered. The hand around his wrist felt icy.

"I don't know if your dreams are hot, but your fever is. Hold still. . . " Mulder looked away, tried to think of an insult or snipe, and was grateful when Sam saved him the trouble.

"This will prick a little." Fucking IV again.

"I've always said that about you, Frito." Winced as he got a new bruise for his collection. Watched Sam tape the thing in. "Jesus, it's gonna look like a bondage flick by the time you get done."

"Wishful thinking. Though sometimes I would like to gag you."

"Remind me not to let you near me with handcuffs." He let his head fall back, and his eyes slid shut. He was seeing chrome and enamel and green of signs, all over again. Frowned. Felt the bed rock as Frito got up, and faintly registered Meyers, getting the traditional rookie job of running out for lunch. Wondered, vaguely, how Cooke was doing with the Enid evidence team. There wasn't a lot there for him to either find or fuck up. Averman set the phone down. Mulder heard it click into the cradle. Felt the bed jar, and cool fingers looking for the pulse in his wrist. The currents of cold air traced past his skin and sounds echoed like they had halos. "Thermometer, Francis. I want to get a temperature." Let Frito lodge the thing in the tender spot under his tongue. The bed drifted, currents around him, breeze, but the smell of cold alcohol and death still hung in his nose, and his eyes flew open, half-expecting to see white sheets and pastel walls. Relaxed again, to see the dark polyester and panelling of the cheap motel.

The glass, now warm, whipped out of his mouth and Frito cursed with some truly vile Spanish oaths that made Mulder grin. Averman had settled his elbows on his knees and was watching them.

"Was it worth it, Mulder? Tell me what you think you saw out there?"

He managed a faint snort. Sam was glaring at both of them, and there was something in the look Averman gave him that made Mulder's guts chill. He cleared his throat and tried to organize the floating impressions.

"He's moved from the abandoned church to the modern one." Read the puzzled expression on their faces. "Oh come on, it's not subtle at all. God is dead? The new god?"

"I didn't find any Eliot on the body this morning." Mulder grinned at him.

"I'll bet. Frito, you didn't find ANYTHING on that body. That's the damned point. All the Eliot is in the body itself, and the setting. _Murder in the Cathedral_ - 'wash the bone, wash the brain.' That's one. Just like I told you it would be. I didn't see the other one until I went out there, but it's there. He's foreshadowing, I think. I'm not sure what, exactly, but he's giving us another piece of Eliot, just a little."

"Okay, dazzle us some more." Sam's dry, quiet voice made Mulder nervous. His voice was thin and shaky, but the words were there.

"Men have left GOD not for other gods, they say, but for no god; and this has never happened before That men both deny gods and worship gods, professing first Reason, And then Money, and Power, and what they call Life, or Race, or Dialectic.The Church disowned. . . '" He faltered to a stop. WatchedSam chew his lower lip, staring back with flat, dark eyes.

Mulder licked his lips, tried to read the conversation that wasn't happening and maintain the one that was. "He started with the corn gods and fertility sacrifices, images of food and fertility. And then Michael and the consecrated Church, abandoned and gutted. . . and this last one, in a lab. Church of Science, but he chose a method that was more primitive than man. . . " He trailed again, and shivered. Pulled the comforter up and around him against a chill that wasn't at all in the air.

"Marion, listen. I talked to Taylor." Mulder could feel Averman watching, but he couldn't look away from Sam. His guts felt watery and his mouth was desperately dry. "The lab can't find anything that indicates an infection, or obvious organic cause for the fever or the vomiting."

"It's psychosomatic. Frito, it's a reaction to. . . to thinking into Elijah's head. I don't know why, but I know it IS. I've been studying the way he thinks, and how he lives, what he believes. You saw my hands, the fire. . ."

"And you also told us prophecies, and you told Averman that Elijah's coming for you. That he knows about your childhood." The gentle, brutal words hung in the air.

"It's not like that. You know it's not."

"Mulder. Your fever's back up. Yes, you were just out in the heat and running around, but you're sick. You've been getting sicker and sicker since we came here." Sam sat next to his feet, eyes on a level with Mulder's. He still felt menacing as hell, with his calm, patient expression. Mulder choked the urge to panic, to fight.

"Sam, he's escalating. He knows who I am and where I come from. Look at the killings. The kids are getting older, and more middle class. He's not picking them at random, he's talking to us."

"I know. This isn't about Elijah." Mulder could see Sam draw a deep breath. "You're really good. You deflect beautifully. But you're sick and getting sicker. Against my better judgement, I'm letting you have twenty-four hours more. Then you go home, and we put you in a hospital."

Mulder was shaking his head, feeling what little color he still had drain from his face. "We catch Elijah and I'll be fine."

Knew it was wrong, even as he said it. Knew he'd made a mistake.

"No. The only thing we can find to match these symptoms is a tumor. You can't play games with that, this has too fast a progression. I don't like letting you even have the one day, but it lets me call ahead and make the arrangements with the airlines and the hospital. You want Hopkins or GW?"

"Sam. . . " Shut his eyes tight, stinging. "Don't do this."

"I know people at both. Don't force me to do this the hard way, Marion. You know Guiterriez will back me."

Mulder looked up, staring at Rodriguez' sad, hard face. Looked for Averman, and saw no help. And he couldn't catch his breath. The air felt heavy and painful in his lungs, and his head hurt. "You aren't listening to me."

"I am. I hear a very ill friend, who isn't thinking clearly."

"Shit! You aren't listening at all! I can find Elijah for you, and. . . " Bit down on his own lip, held the words. Nodded slowly. "All right. All right, don't call Guiterriez. Give me the twenty-four, and then I'll go back. You can put me in GW." Bitter, bitter words. Sam relaxed and breathed out. Smiled at him. Patted his ankle. Mulder controlled the flinch, felt his face freeze.

Averman had stood, scooped up his notes. Mulder could see, in the mirror over the bureau, what the AIC saw. Pale face, dark smudges under his eyes, matched by the scraped bruise on his jaw and cheek. The patient, sympathetic look galled and made sense.

"Why don't you get some sleep. I'll use the phone in here. You call me if you need anything." Mulder watched Averman go, faintly heard him settle at an identical table, identical phone. Looked back to find Sam watching him.

"Good work, the stuff about the churches I mean. It makes lots of sense." The tone was light, but the words hurt. "Marion. . . " Mulder felt himself flinch, saw the hurt in Sam's face. "Christ, I didn't want to do this to you. We'll talk about it when you're feeling better." Sam picked up a blanket and pulled it over him.

Long shaky breaths while he just stood there. Mulder finally pulled down, into the blankets and shut his eyes, shut them all out. Let the heat and fever and exhaustion pull him under until they all went away.

Continued in part 27..................

=====================================================================  
======

From: livengoo@tiac.net  
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative  
Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 27/41 NC-17  
Date: 16 Feb 1996 11:05:05 GMT

Oklahoma (Part 27/41)  
By Amperage and Livengoo  
Copyright October, 1995

International Readers: No third season spoilers  
Rating: NC-17 for language and violence

Fox Mulder and the X-Files are the creation and intellectual  
property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting. The  
FBI is the property of the US Government. Oklahoma and Louisiana  
and Texas belong to exactly who you think they'd belong to, and  
everything else belongs to Amperage and Livengoo.

_________________

He could see chrome and white and tile. Glass and starched, hard, white cotton. Beds with rails, and sharp things around him, light that held him trapped while cool hands probed and voices asked him questions. Enamel cabinets with glass, cylinders of glass with needles, metal rails and tables and hard edges all around. But the smells were death and illness. Sand under his feet, and fire that ran through his veins.

'Water and fire succeed  
The town, the pasture and the weed.  
Water and fire deride  
The sacrifice that we denied.  
Water and fire shall rot  
The marred foundations we forgot,  
Of sanctuary and choir.  
This is the death of water and fire.'

"No. This is not my church, I do not follow this faith." But he heard the voice now, loud at his shoulder.

"You've worshipped here often enough."

Fox felt the sand shift under his feet, and the water lap cold, and salt.

'And death shall have no dominion.  
Under the windings of the sea  
No more may gulls cry at their ears  
Or waves break loud on the seashores. . . '

Somewhere a girl with gold hair found peace in the sands left when an inland sea died and an age of the world ceased to be. Fox turned to find a different face.

'Am I not sister, too, who is my saviour?  
Am I not all of you, by the directed sea  
Where bird and shell are babbling in my tower?'

"The old drunkard knew the sea, too. But he didn't keep  
faith." A woman stood on the shore, reading to them both.

'Lady, whose shrine stands on the promontory,  
Pray for all those who are in ships. . .  
And those concerned with every lawful traffic. . .  
Also pray for those who were in ships, and  
Ended their voyage on the sand, in the sea's lips  
Or in the dark throat which will not reject them  
Or wherever cannot reach them the sound of the sea bell's  
Perpetual angelus.

He twisted in his sleep, listening for the bell, and heard only voices from so far away. . .

"Jesus, he's burning up. . . " - "I'll call an ambulance." -

"No. It'll take too long. They can't cope with this here. Get Oklahoma City and a chopper. . . " Cool hand on his forehead, cutting through the heat and fog, calling him, but another voice was louder. Green trees. Green sea. Green sign. Oklahoma City.   
. .

'Let us go then, you and I,  
When the evening is spread out against the sky  
Like a patient etherised upon a table. . . '

He drifted somewhere, he didn't know where, but when he shut his eyes he could hear the rain and pretend he was in Massachusetts.

 

 

Mulder considered the big-chested, blonde student nurse. If he hadn't been leaning over, vomiting his guts out, this might have been an enviable position. As it was, even being able to see down the front of her smock didn't make him feel any better. He closed his eyes. Fuck it hurt.

He sat miserably as she recorded the fluid he'd sent back into the ecosystem and wet a washrag. She'd come in with implements of torture, and despite the fact that she was indeed a midwestern, corn-fed coed who probably stripped part-time to pay for college, he wasn't feeling terribly friendly. An IV machine with a Thorazine drip. There was also a fucking needle and a small bottle. He didn't need to guess about that one. The Valium they'd given him for the CT scan was only just now wearing off.

He leaned back against the bed, grateful Frito had put it in a semi-reclining position before deserting him to go read test results. Not the full recline like he wanted, but a decided improvement on sitting up straight. His head hurt like hell. Not a pounding ache, more a. . .oh what would you call it. . .just a general ache that reverberated through him and made noise hell. The CT scan hadn't been bad, even with the Valium in his IV. But the spinal tap, letting a doctor puncture him with a hot knitting needle three or four times, before heading him straight into exquisite torture. Mulder could see uses for that procedure in getting suspects to talk.

"Okay. I'm going to put some Valium into your old IV. It'll make you feel calmer." Mulder finally read the blonde's name tag. Brenda.

It figured.

"Not like I have much choice," Mulder replied.

Brenda glanced at the restraints like they were something polite people didn't talk about. She flushed and shot the Valium into his IV. Mulder didn't even ask about the chances for getting the restraints off. When he'd gotten here, still in a haze and they'd shoved him in the room, he'd almost cried. The little private room was almost refrigerated, and then they'd slapped a cooling blanket over him. Taken his sweats and put him in a gown. He was so fucking cold. So cold his teeth chattered.

The Valium hit his arm, already bruised and sore, with a burning singe that should be familiar by now, but wasn't. Mulder closed his eyes against the fresh onslaught of pain. It was really too much. He was freezing cold and strapped to his bed and his back hurt where they'd poked him and they'd brought in all these big hulking orderlies like Mulder wouldn't be able to hold himself still in the fucking position of a fetus and his head hurt and no one believed in Elijah. He bit his lip to keep from crying, found it already raw but didn't really care. But the Valium was already robbing his misery of its power, leaving him with a vagueness and a not caring, that, in its own way was worse.

Brenda ripped Frito's tape off. Mulder scarcely felt it as she changed out needles and IV's and Thorazine began making its slow way into his bloodstream and into his body and into his thoughts.

 

Francis was out when Rodriguez got back. The CAT scan didn't show diddly. The spinal and the blood tests weren't back yet. The X-rays told everyone else what Sam already knew. He sat down on the cheap, vinyl, couch-convert-a-bed, back to the window, and let himself collapse. Fox Mulder was sick, maybe dying and the list of possibilities was being whittled down bit by bit by bit. Rare and exotic poison, meningitis, toxoplasmosis encephalitis, Lupus and Reiter's syndrome. . .It wasn't fair and it wasn't right.

Marion's mouth hung open in sleep. Sam grinned sadly, thinking about old jokes shared between them, and about how like a little boy this made his friend look. His hands hung in the restraints, twisted up as though he had been fighting in his dreams, but the hand itself was loose, fingers gently splayed like those of God the Creator in Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel. The LED readout on the IV machine made an infinity sign that constantly moved, indicating that nothing was wrong, that the flow of drugs was constant and precise. And that Fox Mulder was stoned out of his mind.

"What? You're Frito the Neato Bandito?" The stranger had dropped a file onto Sam's already cluttered desk, mouth riding up at the corners in a cruel smile.

Samuel Rodriguez was used to bigots. You got a tough hide or you got out of the Bureau. He eyed the tall man up and down. "I sure as hell ain't the Cisco Kid," he replied.

The brown haired, doe-eyed man had burst out laughing as Sam opened the file. Oh. Fox Mulder's case. The new kid. The cocky son-of-a-bitch everyone was talking about. The asshole whose dick was bigger than everyone else's. He was incredibly bright, scarily good, and was supposed to be a wonder boy. Add to that the fact that his father had worked for the State Department and you got someone other people were just dying to hate. So, Rodriguez guessed, the kid just gave everyone a reason. Real aristocrat this one. Oh yeah. "Francis Marion," he replied.

The man blinked. "Excuse me?"

"I bet one of your ancestors was Francis Marion, the fairy Swamp Fox with the faggot feather in his cap."

Fox Mulder's cruel smile became a delighted grin. "Fuck you. My ancestors were Scotch-Irish. They didn't know when to bathe and wore absolutely nothing under their kilts."

"Probably because there was nothing there for anyone to worry about."

"You know what they say. Small hands, small feet. Big hands, big feet?"

"Want a wheelbarrow to carry it around in?"

"At least I fucking don't have to rub on both sides before she knows I'm there."

 

 

"Frito?" It was a moan. Sam swallowed.

"Hi, Francis." He stood, leaned over the bedrails and wiped his friend's sweaty brow.

"I'm so cold. Please let me have a couple of minutes without the blanket."

"I'm sorry, Francis. I can't. You know I can't."

"Please." It was a beg. "I'm so cold. I'll do anything." 

"I know. But we've got to get the fever down."

Mulder smiled at this for some reason. "Glad you kept your gay loves to yourself," he muttered. "The nurses keep using the thermometer as an excuse to view my butt."

Sam grinned for Mulder's benefit. "They've got a whole crop of student nurses here."

Mulder grinned. "Young, chesty, blonde. Sounds like a cheap b-movie."

"Yeah, and you should see the female ones too." 

This caused a bark of laughter. "Stop making me laugh, Frito, you fucking bastard. It hurts like hell." Mulder swallowed. "Has anyone called my parents?"

Oh shit. Oh fucking shit, Sam berated himself. "No. I'll. . ."

"Don't, please. I don't. . .please don't. My records have Reggie on them. I don't. . .Mom won't leave the island. Dad's. . .he wouldn't know what to. . .don't let them bury me at Arlington. Make them bury me on the Vineyard. Sam will look there when she finds out. . ." Mulder trailed.

"You're not going to die. Stop being self-pitying," Sam said harshly. More harshly than he'd intended. "You're sick. You're probably sicker than you've ever been in your entire life, but you're not going to die."

Mulder swallowed, forced his eyes open. "Elijah's coming for me," he said softly.

Sam took a deep breath and expelled it. It was no use trying for logic. Mulder's mind was not rational. Paranoia.

"You're safe here," Sam said gently. "Don't worry about anyone doing anything to you. You're safe."

Mulder stared at his friend sadly. "I'm sorry, Sam."

Rodriguez stared. He rarely heard Mulder use his first name in direct address. "There's nothing to be sorry over," he said finally, softly.

"Yes there is. You shouldn't. . .this. . .this wasn't. . .it wasn't fair . . ." Mulder paused. He licked his lips. "Not to make you come. . .come this far from your world."

Sam stood a moment, tenuous, knowing he had to make a decision. Play it safe and play doctor or walk out on tottery boards and be a friend. Jenny would never forgive him for playing doctor. "I followed you, and fair or unfair wasn't involved," he whispered. "You're my friend."

Mulder stared at Sam for a long time. Understanding. "I'm sorry," he whispered again, eyes struggling to stay open.

"Nothing to be sorry about. Now close your eyes and go back to sleep," Rodriguez ordered, laying a heavy hand over Mulder's  
face.

 

Averman's foot was light and Mulder did not stir. Rodriguez set down the last of his USA Today, on top of his growing stack of newspapers and stood. They went out of the icy little room and stood in the hallway.

"How is he?"

Rodriguez shrugged. "He's on Thorazine. He's still spiking a high fever. He's still vomiting. Nothing to tell." He felt like sliding down the wall and just sitting on the floor. 

Averman leaned against a wall, stared across the hall at another hospital door. "Why's it so cold in there?"

"They're treating symptoms. Trying to keep his body temp down. He's under a cooling blanket as well. Ice cold water circulating over him," Frito explained tiredly. "Anything new?"

Averman made a face, sighed. "They're sending us another analyst in a few days. No more bodies. Does Mulder still think Elijah is coming for him?"

"Unfortunately yes," Sam replied, rubbing his eyes.

"I wonder if he isn't right."

"He's sick. He's delusory."

"He was dead on with every murder. It makes sense," Averman argued. "It really does make sense. We know the mother went to Radcliffe. Oh we got their names. Rosamund Delia Freye. And Clarence David Gragg."

"Rosamund Delia?" Frito replied. Blinking. And then the white boys thought *his* sisters were named funny? Oh yeah, right.

Averman nodded. "We're going through the Massachusetts records now for a marriage license, info on the kids, got people interviewing. I'll have all that by. . ." he checked his watch, "6 or 7. The Massachusetts' Clerk of the Register wasn't thrilled with us, but we got her to work late for the first time in her life." Averman grinned. "Listen, Meyers is getting us rooms close to the hospital. Why don't we get him to come up here and he can babysit Mulder while you and I go to supper.

Sam shook his head. God he was tired, but there was a couch in there, after all. "I need to be here, if the spinal results come back, or any other symptoms develop. . ."

"I had a Retriever bitch that was like you. Every litter of pups, had to literally drag her away from the whelping bed. . ."

"What are you insinuating?" Sam asked darkly.

"Don't make me get the leash."

"Watch out. I'll shed my fleas."

"Yeah, you and every other wetback. What else is new?"

 

 

Mulder woke to the back of Haunted Mesa and Louis L'Amour's photo. "Hey," he muttered softly.

Averman put the book down. "Hey yourself. How are you feeling?"

"Like hell. But the scenery's nice."

Averman nodded appreciatively. "If I were twenty years younger..."

"If you were twenty years younger the sheep would still be scared," Mulder managed. "They discovered my fetish."

"What? Bondage? Hell, that secret's been out. You gotta stop screwing the secretarial pool."

Mulder gave a half-shrug and smiled. "And here I thought no one knew." He shivered. "Anything new on the case?"

Averman shook his head.

Mulder nodded, eyes distant. "I'm scared. Elijah's so close."

"We're not going to leave you alone. I promise."

Mulder stared at Averman.

"We won't. Someone will stay with you."

 

 

He'd bought the Cherokee Wagoneer new. A limited. Four wheel drive, six cylinder, leather interior, keyless entry, black with wood panels. Automatic everything. Heavily tinted windows. Childproof locks.

The children had loved it. Especially with the back seat folded down, so they had room to play, to stretch out, to nap. Elijah yawned, considered the building of the Hilton, the teddy bear that had been Michael's. Everytime he closed his eyes he remembered. He hadn't meant to hurt Fox or Michael. He'd thought. . .he'd thought Michael was in a coma. He'd thought Michael was almost dead. But Fox had been so frightened and Michael hadn't died until the fire ate at him. Elijah didn't remember Fox being frightened of fire. But Elijah had been young and simple then. He had known that Fox was in and out of the hospital far too often, that he always got the room across from the nurse's desk, that Fox was clumsy. But he hadn't understood. No one had violated Elijah yet.

Elijah was unsure of his next step. He would pray tonight, pray and hope for inspiration. He planned to go visit Fox in the hospital tomorrow morning. He didn't want Fox to be in such misery. Fox had trusted God. When Fox died, when Elijah died, they would be in God's warm arms and it would be all right. And people would know, because Fox had told them, that children were hurt. And so those people, they would be able to see that Fox had been hurt too. And that just because a hurt child grows up, it doesn't mean that they outgrow being hurt. But it would be okay. Because Fox and Elijah would be safe in the arms of Jesus. And no one would ever break Fox's leg again and no one would ever slide his penis up Elijah's butt and breathe hot on his neck, fingers digging into soft skin.

Elijah closed his eyes and grabbed Michael's bear into his arms. It was an expensive, soft bear. Michael had chosen it. Elijah decided to leave it here. He closed his face off, the way he had been taught, and got out of the Jeep, headed into the Hilton with his overnight bag.

 

The wounded surgeon plies his art   
Resolving the enigma of the fever chart.

The great physician now is near   
The sympathizing Jesus.

The chill ascends from feet to knees   
The fever sings in mental wires   
If to be warmed, then I must freeze   
And quake in frigid purgatorial fires   
Of which the flame is roses, and the smoke is briars.

And that, to be restored, our sickness must grow worse.

Those are pearls which are his eyes.  
I am not permitted to see.

His screams were wordless and sounded at the top of Mulder's register. They echoed down the corridors and brought the night staff running, armed with more Valium, prepared to reprogram the bastardized calculator that measured and controlled the amount of Thorazine entering Mulder's bloodstream. Mulder was pulling against the restraints, his eyes wide and scarily dilated. Screaming and screaming and if he didn't shut up Meyers would fucking go insane.

The figures clustered around his bed made matters worse, terrified him.

He was screaming something now, screaming words. "LEGGO!LEGGO!!LEGGOLEGGOLEGGOLEGGOLEGGOLEGGOLEGGO!!!!!"Pulling and tugging at the restraints with everything in him, every vein in his arms standing out. The intern, Kit Sanderson, who was, Meyers had discovered after the first nightmare, Meyers' age, filled a needle with Valium. A lot of Valium, and pressed it into the IV.

Mulder was crying now. Oh God, Meyers hated watching this process, having seen it once before, knowing that it made his anus pucker and his scrotum draw up and his stomach churn and he just wanted to sit on the couch with his knees to his chin and clench his eyes shut until it was all over and Mulder was asleep again. 

Please make it better, please make it better, make it stop, Meyers demanded silently of the walls.

Sanderson watched as the Valium ran into Mulder's body as Mulder's loudness abated. Mulder had tears running down the sides of his face and he was still scared. He was sobbing now, angry sobs, he was fighting the Valium with all of his strength. Turning his head back and forth and trying to find some direction to look that didn't involve staring at the staff.

Kit got rid of the rest of the nursing staff, everyone. That just left Kit and Meyers and Mulder, just like before.

Meyers felt so damned helpless, standing now, since all the people were gone, standing on the other side of Mulder's bed. Kit had told him what to do last time, but this time he could handle it on his own.

Meyers grabbed the box of Kleenex on his own, a whole wad. "Come on," he told the older man.

Mulder stared at him. "Come on. Your nose has got to be full of snot."

Mulder blew his nose, like a little kid. Meyers could see the Valium working, loosening him, making it hard for him to concentrate. The sobs were dying a quick death.

"You're okay." Meyers felt stupid. This was Spooky Mulder. Despite all that he had seen, all that had happened, this, this was the worst. It was a violation.

They had known that he was going around the bend, they had known that, but Mulder was still an agent. Mulder was still one of the best, even if he was half crazy. Even when he'd sobbed in Jack Averman's arms, you still had to respect the man. But this. Mulder was tied to his bed, covered in something out of a bad Buck Rogers episode. It was so fucking cold in here that Meyers had yet to take off his suit jacket, and then when Mulder had a nightmare they didn't give him time to calm down, they just drugged the hell out of him and upped the Thorazine.

Meyers didn't know what other choices they had. But. . .he stared at Kit. The guy was really nice, and pretty good or he wouldn't be here, but still. Mulder was just a nutso patient to him. Reset the IV machine so that he was sent into deep la-la land, out there where the elves lived. This Kit Sanderson didn't know that Mulder was the swingingest dick in VICAP. Didn't know that Mulder was responsible for capturing killers on worthless clues. Didn't know that the man he was so blithely sedating had a fucking genius IQ and eidetic memory and a PhD from fucking Oxford. That his father had beaten the crap out of him and that his sister had been kidnapped while he watched helplessly. This man knew none of that. He saw a loopy patient screaming.

Meyers stifled his anger and went back to calming Mulder with words that meant nothing and went nowhere, words that merely served to let Mulder know that Meyers was there and would not leave. Words that helped Mulder fall back into that pit of nightmares called sleep.

Meyers sat with Sam over plates of cafeteria food. He was so fucking tired. Every pore of his body ached. He slumped over the orange plastic tray with his OJ and cereal and toast and little packets of apple butter, five cents a fucking piece. [Five cents for little packets of apple butter? The hospital had you by the balls and they knew it.] He was weary. So weary. The Thorazine. Mulder was on so much Thorazine he could have impersonated a deadhead. And early this morning, before breakfast for some ungodly reason no one could explain, yet another intern and some nurses and a lab tech had come in and wanted bone marrow. They'd pulled out a needle the size of something from a Marx Brother's comedy and held Mulder down. Mulder had been so far gone, he hadn't really understood what was going on. He'd only known that it hurt and that they were poking him again. And Meyers had had to crouch at eye-level and lie and say that everything was okay. That it would be okay. It would be all right. Everything would be fine. And Mulder couldn't even wipe his own tears or blow the snot from his nose. Meyers poked at his fruit loops and tried to swallow. 

Well, at least when he'd left, Mulder had been okay. He'd gone back to sleep, and woken up when the meal cart made its incredibly loud groaning stop. Rodriguez and Meyers had left him with a student nurse and some Gatorade and jello. Good luck. Mulder might be stoned, but he wasn't the least bit complacent. 

Averman came in, looking clean. "We've got the team in from Ashton," he said sitting down. "How's Mulder?" 

Rodriguez shrugged. "Drooling. He did his psychotic impression last night, according to Meyers." 

Averman took a deep breath. 

"You weren't hoping to use him?" Rodriguez asked. 

"We have the names." Averman wiped his face. "Let me get some coffee." 

He returned a few moments later with a pint sized cup and some packets of Sweet-n-Low. 

Averman took a deep breath. "The Graggs had five children. Just like Mulder said." He pulled a notebook out of his inside breast pocket. "Maria Ariel Gragg. Jonathan Elijah Gragg. Anna Sarah Gragg, Ezekiel Zebodee Gragg and Timothy Mark Gragg. Their father was a minister at the Episcopal church at West Tisbury between the years of 1957 and 1965." 

"West Tisbury's on the Vineyard." Rodriguez felt a cold chill go down his back. 

Averman nodded slowly. 

"Oh my God. Oh my God." The cold chill tinged with the blue of electric fire. Rodriguez' spit went dry and his mouth filled with a metal tang. He felt his hands and face grow cold as blood seeped out of them. 

Meyers said the words for them. "He knew Elijah." 

"We don't know that," Averman replied. "But it wouldn't surprise me any." 

"Elijah. . .Fox. . .they. .. it wasn't guessing or telepathy. Mulder knew him. They probably played each other in Pee-Wee league. Where did Mulder's family go to church?" 

"I don't know. I don't know any thing like that. . ." Averman sighed. "You've got to convince them to let him out of the fog of Thorazine. If Mulder and Elijah were friends. . ." 

"Oh my God," Rodriguez repeated. 

 

 

"Testing?" Rodriguez blinked. "There wasn't supposed to be anymore testing." 

The duty nurse sighed and pulled down Agent Mulder's chart from the large revolving rack. "He had the papers for thyroid function tests. . ." She flipped through the charts. "Okay. Dr. Chang ordered them for this morning." 

"And then we cancelled them," Rodriguez replied, indignant. 

"Look. You're not on staff. If you have a problem, speak with Dr. Chang." 

"Where *is* Dr. Chang?" Rodriguez asked, not for the first time wanting to do violence to an RN. 

"On rounds, I assume." 

"Where would Mulder be if he was going for these tests?" Averman asked, not so concerned with the fact that Mulder was being tested as he was with the fact that they didn't know where Mulder *was*. 

"Third floor," the woman said, not volunteering anymore. 

"I would like an orderly to show me where, exactly," Averman said patiently. 

"They're all busy." 

"Then unbusy someone. I don't care who you unbusy. But do it. Or I'll charge you with obstruction of Justice." Hell, he couldn't do that just because this old biddy with the Loving Care dark brown hair and the ovoid reading glasses with the chain holding them to her neck was being a pain in the butt, but she probably didn't know that. 

The woman pursed her lips, narrowed her eyes and stared at Averman, unintimidated. 

"I'm going right by there," a pleasant female voice said. "I'll take them, Grace." The speaker was a woman about the size of Averman's right thigh, who wore a lab coat with her name embroidered on it. AnnaLou Eichlemann, MD 

"Meyers," Averman barked. "You up to it, or you want to catch a shower and a shave." 

Meyers snorted. "You married?" he asked the chipper little thing. 

"No," she replied confused. 

"Maybe I'll get lucky." 

"In your dreams Jewboy," Frito shot out. 

"Don't you know that's why Hitler tried to exterminate the race?" Meyers replied, surprised at himself. "Nobody else could get a date with us around." 

AnnaLou Eichlemann was grinning from ear to ear at this exchange. 

"You're Jewish?" she asked as she led Meyers to the elevators. 

"With a name like Meyers? You gotta be kidding. You observant?" 

"Only when my mother's around. She nearly went into mourning when I got engaged to a Baptist boy from Tulsa." 

Meyers snorted. "Mine wouldn't care what religion as long as she didn't keep a rosary on the bedstead or sacrifice chickens in the living room." 

AnnaLou burst out laughing. 

"Okay. Who're you looking for?" AnnaLou asked, going behind the counter, moving around clerical types. 

"Fox Mulder." 

AnnaLou checked long lists. "Yeah. He was scheduled, but then it was cancelled. Last night." She looked up, confused. 

Meyers swallowed and tried to think clearly. Just a mix up. Mulder's probably just sitting against a wall right now, stoned, waiting for someone to find him. Like he'd always done at Dillards when he was in preschool and his mom forgot she'd brought him and went in search of bargains. 

"Can you call up and get my friends?" 

AnnaLou blinked. "It's just a mix up." 

"We're FBI agents," Meyers began. 

"Oh well duh," AnnaLou replied. 

"Don't get sarcastic or I won't make your mother happy," Meyers whipped out. Being around Mulder had rubbed off. No more skin mags for Meyers. He was going to get laid now. "Look. . .umm we're on the taskforce looking for the Babykiller." 

AnnaLou swallowed and went slightly pale. 

"Mulder thought that the killer was coming for him, but we thought it was just. . .paranoia. . .now we need to find him, quickly." 

AnnaLou nodded and picked up the phone. 

Continued in part 28................ 

=========================================================================== 

From: livengoo@tiac.net Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 28/41 NC-17 Date: 17 Feb 1996 01:25:53 GMT 

Oklahoma (Part 28/41) By Amperage and Livengoo Copyright October, 1995 

International Readers: No third season spoilers Rating: NC-17 for language and violence 

Fox Mulder and the X-Files are the creation and intellectual property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting. The FBI is the property of the US Government. Oklahoma and Louisiana and Texas belong to exactly who you think they'd belong to, and everything else belongs to Amperage and Livengoo. 

____________________ 

Elijah glanced back again at Fox, who was still asleep, still comfortable from the drugs. God had provided. The wheelchair and the patient and even made him calm and quiet with drugs. Elijah had his old, heartshaped, steel love-cuffs but he'd broken out the self-release clasps so they were perfectly secure to hold Fox. When they got to heaven and Fox saw how all the children were safe in the arms of Jesus, Fox wouldn't be mad. 

He snorted at himself. Kind of like a cat and a mouse, right? He finally caught it, now what the hell was he going to do with it? First things first, he had to get Fox out of that disgusting hospital gown. God, those things were embarrassing. Show your butt and your dick to half of the free world. (He'd actually tried a hospital gown out at an orgy once with a male nurse who was hung like a horse. Not too bad, but a good PVC thong bikini was always going to top it out as Elijah's preferred form of outerware for such events.) 

Second, he had to expect Fox's unbelieving, blasphemous friends to come after him. Massachusetts was too far away. 

Elijah worried his bottom lip as he drove along the freeway, trying to figure out where to go. They had to get out of Oklahoma. Forever. 

Beaches. Elijah skidded through the lanes of traffic to an offramp. He was headed the wrong way. He needed to be headed South. 

 

 

"What do you mean, we've *lost* a patient. The only patient I've ever lost had Alzhiemer's. Wasn't my fault she wheeled herself into pediatrics," Grace Halverson heaved. "Fox Mulder is not lost." She stared at the short little chink doctor. He might be world renowned and all that, but he was still shorter than she was. 

"Then where is he?" 

"Someone came and took him." 

"Did you check his orders?" 

"The orders were written up in his chart. Why would I check his orders?" 

"Did you know the orderly?" This from Averman. They were all sitting in the nurse's lounge, and Grace now understood what an inquisition felt like. 

"This is the largest hospital in Oklahoma. I can't know *every* orderly." 

Averman put his head back against the wall. So far nothing. They had agents on every floor, going over every space, but so far no Fox Mulder. 

"Do you even know the name on his badge?" Averman asked. 

"Whose badge?" 

Averman counted to ten. "The orderly's badge?" 

"No. It wasn't important." 

Because orderlies weren't important. FUCK. Jack Averman stood and picked up his cellular phone, dialed a number. "I need an APB on Mulder. We think he's been kidnapped. . .yeah. Well, if he's here he's hiding in the fucking boiler room with a nurse. Yeah, my regards too. . ." 

 

 

Elijah watched as Mulder woke and took in the surroundings. "Hi," he said gently. They were at a mall. Elijah had Mulder's general size now, he thought. 

Mulder stared blankly, dully. He knew he'd been kidnapped, but the drugs were evidently making it hard for him to react. "It's been a long time, Fox." 

Mulder blinked at him. "Has it?" 

"Yeah. About twenty years." 

Zoom. Right over Fox's head. Elijah sighed. "You were sweet on Ariel. Don't you remember? Mary and Foxy sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Fox with a baby carriage." 

Mulder closed his eyes. "Jon? Jon?" Open the eyes again."You moved after your Mom died. . .I remember I was in the hospital with. . ." He didn't remember what. "Jon. You aren't a killer." 

Elijah felt a spark of anger and pushed it back down. "No. I just do the Lord's work." 

"I don't believe in God." 

Elijah bit his cheek sadly. Oh. That explained so much then, why it had been so hard for Fox to understand. 

"What happened to Sam?" Sam had been Elijah's age. 

Mulder closed his eyes. Elijah swallowed. 

"Is she dead, Fox?" 

Mulder swallowed, loudly, painfully. 

Elijah sighed. "I'm going into the store for some clothes for you. Is there anything you want especially?" 

"No Baylor sweatshirts," Mulder moaned. 

Elijah grinned. "You and me both," he replied happily. "I'm going to put a cuff on you, so you won't be able to get out. You're pretty weak and you might hurt yourself." He cuffed Mulder's untaped arm and then hung the cuff around a ring on the bed of the cherokee. "I won't be gone long enough for the Cherokee to get hot." 

"I'm thirsty," Mulder muttered. "They won't let me have anything but Gatorade." 

"That shit tastes like piss with honey and lemon." 

Mulder shrugged. "You shouldn't have killed those kids, Jon," he muttered, eyes closing. "You shouldn't have." 

"I'll get you something," Elijah promised sadly. He wondered what had happened to Sam. What had happened to Fox. Oh God, we were all once innocent and happy. But Fox's dad beat him and then my dad fucked me. He didn't want to think about what could have happened to Sam. Ariel, Fox's girl was dead. Elijah felt tear tracks run down his cheeks and he made his way into the Ardmore mall as he wept for a time long past in the Massachusetts air, playing tag on the front of a church lawn. 

 

 

"Oh yeah, that must have been when they brought that guy in, around ten-thirty this morning. The one who went totally fucking nuts in the post office. God, took five of us to hold him down, fucking psychopath. . . " 

Meyers' pleasant smile was slowly becoming a rictus as he watched the guard's florid face quiver with indignation. "And he pushed the guy out into the parking lot?" 

"I figure. Like I say, that's when they brought that lunatic in. I've got better things to do than look after orderlies." The man's jowls quivered as he shook his head in disgust. "Asshole. Left the wheelchair out there like I'm some kind of fucking grocery store clerk here to pick up their carts. What's he think? I don't have anything better to do? Well he's gonna learn to laugh out of the other side of his face after I get him up on a disciplina. . . " 

Meyers was patting the air, trying to cut off the tirade. "This is important, the patient, did he look like this? He'd have had a bruise on his face, and he might have been a little thinner. . . " Held out Mulder's FBI ID, with its official portrait. The guard took it in his calloused hands, studying it. 

"Yeah, I guess that could have been the guy. 'Cept he was sound asleep and drooling and really skinny. He did look kind of like this, but really skinny. Another wet-brain, huh?" Snickering, and Meyers gritted his teeth. 

"So, can you describe the orderly?" From the frown on this man's face, Meyers wasn't cherishing any great hopes. 

"Uh, young guy. Real smug little shit. Smiling like a damned fool. Umm. He had blond hair, and I guess he lifted weights. Got the other guy into his car all on his own, didn't he?" 

"You remember the car?" Sudden quickening of interest. Meyers felt a surge of hope for the first time since they'd realized that Mulder really was gone. 

"I already told you I was busy with that shooter." The guard eyed Meyers. "I never saw him leave, but he didn't need any help, did he? Nobody else out there. Anybody else and they should have remembered to bring the fucking chair back. That all? I only got ten minutes of my break left, and you're wasting my time." 

Meyers stared at him, almost told him what he thought of him and his break and his fucking wheelchair. Then spun and walked out the door. Down to the exit, retracing the route that Elijah had used to leave. Stood staring at the booth by the exit, where the attendant took tickets and collected money for parking. Stared until his eyes widened, and he raced up to the booth, baking in the Oklahoma summer sun. 

"Listen, do you keep records of the cars that go through here?" He glanced at the camera, set to record transactions and get license numbers. 

"Yeah. What do you think the camera's for?" The tired attendant gave him a tolerant, insolent look, leaned past Meyers to collect money being waved out a car window. 

"I need to get the tapes." That stopped the guy. His eyes narrowed. Meyers whipped out his FBI badge and let him get a good, long look at it. "Official investigation. I need those tapes and I need them now." 

The attendant scanned the badge, swallowed, and reached for his phone. "Just let me get my supervisor, Agent Meyers, and we'll see about getting you your tapes." 

 

 

Mulder's arm was falling asleep, and he was dizzy from the way the Cherokee rode when Elijah pulled off the highway and found a closed-down warehouse simmering along the railroad tracks. 

"Okay, Fox. Let's get you out of that stupid gown." He got out, came around to the back. Leaned down from the open door to unlock the cuff from the tether ring on the floor. Mulder swallowed, trying to get enough spit to make it worthwhile, but the thick, cottony feel of his mouth left him dry. So hard to think. Jon helped him sit up, and untied the hospital gown, pulled it off. 

Shook his head at thin ribs, bruises down Mulder's spine, and on his hip from the tests. 

"You don't need to worry at all, Fox. Everything's going to be all right. No one's going to hurt you again." 

Except you, ran through his head. And maybe it wasn't the Thorazine leaving his mouth so dry this time. Jon handed him a pair of boxers. 

"Here, I wasn't sure what you liked, but I figured these would do." Mulder pulled them on, and took the blue jeans. That wasn't as easy. The Valium and Thorazine made him dizzy, and he was still weak as hell from the fever. The seat back propped him up as he pulled them up, and Elijah reached over to help him get the loose jeans tugged up and around his waist. Smiled at him with that blinding, innocent grin. 

"Scootch up now, and we'll get these the rest of the way on. Don't worry, I helped the kids get dressed, and my little brother too. I figure you must feel pretty lousy with all the stuff they did to you." He helped Mulder pull a Sooners sweatshirt over his head. Reached to help button the jeans, when he saw how Fox's hands shook. "It's okay, Fox. Really. They hurt you a lot, let me help you here." 

Mulder shook his head, hissed in frustration. Elijah finally let him finish the buttons, and grabbed a pair of Keds, started pulling them over bare feet. Let Elijah tie the laces in big bows, double knotted like a kid's, so they wouldn't pull loose. 

"C'mon, you can ride in the front now. You won't feel so dizzy if you can sit up and see the horizon." Mulder scooted to the door, felt a heavy, muscled arm go around his back. Winced as Elijah brushed against the bruises from the spinal tap. 

"I'm sorry, Fox. I know you're still sore from all those tests." Elijah half lifted Fox into the front seat. Fastened the seatbelt as the drugged man let his head drop back against the headrest. The smudges under his eyes, and the gray and yellow bruise on his cheek were stark against the pale, cool skin. Elijah felt the familiar twist of sorrow. Shook his head. "You just kept on finding people to hurt you, didn't you, Fox?" Closed the door and headed around to the driver's seat, never seeing the watchful gleam under dark lashes. 

Mulder's hazel eyes opened wide as Elijah got back into the jeep. "Where are we going, Jon?" 

"Home. We're going home, at last." The warmth in that smile was terrifying. Elijah reached into a bag and pulled out two bottles. "I wasn't sure whether you liked Coke or tea. . . " Mulder took the tea, twisted off the cap, feeling the cuff rattling off his wrist and slapping his chest as he lifted his hand to drink. Elijah sipped his soda, then offered an apologetic smile and reached across as Mulder lowered his hand, caught the free cuff and locked it around the panic bar on the door. Mulder swallowed, stared at his trapped wrist and carefully shifted his drink to his left hand. 

"You really don't need that, Jon. Where could I go?" 

"I'm sorry about this, Fox. But you might hurt yourself if you got out. It'll be okay, you'll see." Finished his Coke and started the engine. The tape deck came on, a tape of spirituals and gospel by some a cappella group. Mulder swallowed and leaned back in his seat. The dashboard clock said it was after one, and the signs said they were on I-20, heading to. . .Tyler? Tyler where? The signs flashed by so fast, and it was hard to concentrate. He sat back and tried to think. By now Frito and Averman had to have figured out he was gone. 

The land was gradually starting to get greener, and to roll. Elijah was humming along to the tape. The tires made such a sweet hum in his head. He could hear it when he leaned his head against the glass of the window. It was so nice, just to drift with his eyes shut, and feel no fever, and no cold. He hadn't felt chills or fever in hours. And the dark was waiting. He slipped under to the calm hum of tires, and the lilt of a man's voice, singing. 

 

Averman took a long sip of coffee and rubbed his eyes. The map in front of him looked terrifyingly huge, with concentric circles marked in colored ink, radiating out from ground zero in Oklahoma City. 

"Dallas. Joplin. Amarillo. FUCK! That bastard could be in another state or right under our noses." His words cut through the ringing clatter of the big room. Men and women, lined up in desks to phone police and the FBI in seven states. Speed traps and traffic cruisers were being alerted in a broadening ring of possibilities. Guards at airports, train stations, bus stations for Christ's sake, all being put on the alert on the off chance that Elijah would show up there. 

Calls were flooding in from police and citizens who thought they might have seen a man meeting the scanty description they could offer for Elijah, might have seen Mulder. A good-looking blond man and a skinny, ill, dark-haired man, possibly drugged. God, how many hundreds of people could match those descriptions. They'd had dozens of calls already, and none of them had panned out. 

Behind him, a woman looked up from the list of license plates and names. Close scrutiny of the parking lot tape had given them thirty-two license plate numbers for people who had exited during the time between when Mulder had been taken from his room, and when the guard had wheeled the empty chair back into the hospital. Thirty-two numbers with names to track down. Thirty two people, most of whom were at work. Phone messages left on machines, urgently requesting a return call to the FBI. It would be hours before they heard from some of them. 

License numbers. A process of elimination to find the license plate number to add to the APB. And just hope Elijah was too busy or too dumb to change his plates. And names. Names that looked nothing like Jonathan Elijah Gragg. But Mulder had said it had been a long time since he'd used his own name. . . 

Calloused fingers were rough on tired eyelids. Averman had to work to focus his eyes enough to see across the room. Tyler and Hitchens were over there, briefing four fresh people just coming on-shift. A hand dropped onto the AIC's shoulder. 

"Christ, Jack. You look like you're about to keel over." Charlie Watkins, the Oklahoma City ASAC, was watching him with worried eyes. "You're not doing your man any good like this. Go get some sleep. You already sent Meyers and Rodriguez off, take your own advice." 

Averman shot him the finger and shook his head. "Hell no. Your guys don't know Elijah and they don't know Mulder. I promised the kid I wouldn't leave him alone. No way in hell do I walk out of here until we pick up a trail." 

"We'll find him. We will." Familiar voice. Cooke, calling neighbors and trying to track down workplaces so they could whittle down their choices, sounded so confident. Averman wanted to throw his coffee at him. 

"We'll find him, all right. Yeah, we'll find him. Get back on that list, Cooke." The AIC picked up the phone at his own desk, stared at a pile of pink notes a moment. These were the few that were close enough that one of them might be Elijah and Mulder. So far, they'd all been near misses, but sooner or later they had to surface. 

Hoped, briefly, that Rodriguez and Meyers were sound asleep. They were going to need fresh minds when the search continued into the night. The locals were enthusiastic, but just not up to this kind of operation without a lot of guidance. 

And they needed an analyst, God knows they needed an analyst now more than ever. He'd called DC, asked them to get their analyst on the line. Allen Brackman was still tied up with a case in California, but he'd call as soon as he picked up his messages. Averman cursed, and dialed the FBI in Arkansas. And every fucking minute, Elijah got harder and harder to find. 

 

 

He was hungry. For the first time in so many days, Mulder was hungry, and he could hear his stomach growling. The sound, and the empty discomfort, had woken him out of a long, drifting sleep to find the land greener and hillier than ever. It was so loud Mulder had blushed, and Elijah had started to laugh. 

"I guess we'll have an early dinner, Fox. If I'd known you were starving I'd have stopped to get lunch." 

"I didn't know I was starving." He sat up and worked his shoulders, winced at the pain in his right wrist as he tried to lift his hand. Remembered who he was with, even if he wasn't at all sure of where he was. "Where are we?" 

"Almost to Rusk. There's the best Dairy Queen God ever put on the face of the land there. I'll stop and get us something." Mulder stared at him. Blond hair. Broad shoulders, and a square chin. He'd been right. Elijah had looks, just like his sister. Blue eyes met his. Kind, warm, flat, mad blue eyes. "Are you okay? Do you need to use the rest stop?" 

Mulder shook himself, realized suddenly that Elijah had asked the question twice. "Uh, yeah." Swallowed and suddenly tried to force his mind to work. "Yeah, I'll need to take a piss whenever we can pull over." Bit the inside of his cheek and looked back out the window. The sun was hard and still high in the west, and Mulder felt a shiver in his bowels. The clock said it was after four. Jesus, six hours unconscious. Rusk. Where the fuck was Rusk? 

Overhead highway signs told them how to get to places in Louisiana and Texas. Okay, he took a moment to focus his eyes. The cars around them had more Texas plates than Louisiana plates. And there were more signs for places he recognized as being in Texas then Louisiana. For all the good it did him. It looked very much to Mulder like he was headed for Rusk, Texas. 

 

He was back in his residency, and it was summer. The kid in front of him was thrashing, screaming with that horrible, thin sound that a man made in agony. Sam knew his face had to be twisted up, but he didn't look. 

He couldn't. 

He was too busy trying to keep the kid's guts inside his body, trying to keep pressure on the horrible, gaping wound that split the young man from his pubes to his sternum, and sent yellow fat and intestines spilling out of his abdomen. The smell of blood and faeces and shocky sweat was a thick, choking cloud around Sam, and the screaming was coming intermittently now, a buzzing, vibrating, hollow sound. Sam looked up to find Fox Mulder's face, twisted in screams, even as his mind finally understood that what he was hearing was the ringing of a phone. 

He knocked the receiver off the hook the first time, hand shaking. It was almost a surprise to see that there was no blood on the phone, on his hand. The two Valium he'd taken left him feeling leaden, made it hard to think. 

"Hello?" 

"Sam? Oh my god, Sam. Where the hell have you been, Sam? I called the Tulsa office and they gave me Jack Averman's cellular and. . . " 

"Jenni?" He could still smell blood in his nostrils. Shivered in the air conditioning and stared around him at a hotel room he didn't remember having walked into. One with no connecting door. 

"You haven't called in days. I got that message on the machine, but I couldn't reach you. They said you were in Enid, and then I couldn't find you at any of the hotels there. . . " 

"Oh God." He rolled on his back and rubbed his eyes. "I'm back in Oklahoma City, Jenni. I'm sorry, I. . . " Bit his lip as he thought of those words. "I'm. . . I'm sorry. Mulder is gone." 

Dead silence. It lasted a long, long time. "Fox? Sam. . . ? You said he was sick, but. . . " 

"Jenni," he rolled over onto his belly, "he's gone and I don't know where he is. Honey, he was so sick. His fever just kept going up and up and. . . he said Elijah was coming for him, but we thought it was just the fever." His voice choked deep in his chest. 

"Sam." Her voice was low and patient, pulling words from him. "Oh baby, oh I'm so sorry. Oh god, Sam. How could he be that sick?" He could hear the catch in her voice. "When did it happen? Oh god. . . When are you coming home? When are you. . . when are you bringing him home?" 

Sam swallowed. Looked at the glass of water by his bed and got a sip, trying to make his mind work. "Bringing. . .? Oh Jenni, no. I. . . Jenni, the killer took him. He's been missing since this morning, and we think he was right. The killer walked in and just. . . walked out with him. The stupid guard damned near watched the fucker wheel Fox right out of the hospital and never thought twice about it, and now we don't know where he is." Anger was burning through the drug now, burning through his aching grief. 

"Wheeled? Sam? Are you telling me The Babykiller kidnapped Fox?" Her voice had dropped to a horrified whisper. 

"Yes. That's exactly what I'm telling you. He's been missing since about ten-thirty this morning." A glance at the clock on his nightstand. Big, glowing numbers told him it was about four in the afternoon. "He's been gone more than six hours. Oh God, Jenni. He could be anywhere. That bastard has him all alone and he's so sick and. . . Oh god." Bit his lip until it hurt, and just lay there, aching. 

"Oh my god, Sam. Oh my god." 

 

Averman's eyes hurt and his head hurt. He didn't know how long he'd sat there with his head in his hands. They were getting calls back now, as people came home and found their messages. Buzz of all those voices on the phone, low and steady, eliminating one rumor after another, one name after another. 

The phone in front of him rang, and he knocked over his cold coffee as he lunged for it. 

"Hello?" 

"Hello, Agent Averman? This is Carol Loftus. Dr. Brackman couldn't call, but I'm another of the analysts. DC asked me to call you." 

"Dr. Loftus, thank you for calling." He wiped his face, pinched the phone between shoulder and ear, pulling a pad and a pen in front of him. 

"I understand you have a problem on your hands. Has your. . . Elijah is it? Has Elijah got another child?" Her voice was clinical, steady. 

"Thank you for calling back. I know you've got to be busy." Lord, the rush of relief and exhaustion was making him stupid. "And yes, we have a real problem on our hands. You know our analyst, Fox Mulder?" 

"Mhm. I know him." Averman had to shake his head and grin at her tone. Recalled the swinging dick-asshole he'd met at the airport and totally understood her reaction. "I heard Mulder was feeling pretty ill. I take it he's out of commission for a while?" 

"Dr. Loftus, we've got a real bitch of a complication on our hands. I'm not sure just how to explain this but. . . Mulder's been abducted by Elijah; he's been missing over six hours now; and we desperately need any help you can give us to figure out where Elijah will take him, and exactly what we might be dealing with if. . . when we find them." 

He could hear her breath puff out in shock. When she spoke again her voice was flat, stunned. "Umm. They faxed me a file with Mulder's assessments and. . . Let me see." 

He waited, tracing designs on his pad of paper. Heard her whispering to herself as she reviewed the file. Then the sound stopped. He could actually hear her gulp over the phone. "Are you sure this man has Mulder?" 

"We're almost certain. There really is no other explanation we can find for his disappearance." 

"All right. Mulder did an amazing job. Very detailed. I'd say it's obvious that your man will head for the coast. It's what coast. . . Umm. He might head for Massachusetts. He'll want to. It's a long way but. . . " 

"Yeah. We've got APBs out all along that route, and in all the states surrounding Oklahoma." 

"Oh god. Yeah, he could be anywhere. Umm. Look, all I can see here to work with right off the bat is that fixation with the coastal landscape. I'll need time to look this over and try to get some theories. The Eliot stuff may tell us a little, and it looks like Mulder was starting to quote Dylan Thomas, too at the end. I mean, if what you people wrote down is what he was saying. If he's that close. . . Jesus. I could develop more if I were there and working with this man and his pattern, not just from a file, but you don't have time. . . " 

"No. We don't. Mulder doesn't." 

Continued in part 29....................... 

=========================================================================== 

From: livengoo@tiac.net Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 29/41 NC-17 Date: 19 Feb 1996 05:06:35 GMT 

Oklahoma (Part 29/41) By Amperage and Livengoo Copyright October, 1995 

International Readers: No third season spoilers Rating: NC-17 for language and violence 

Fox Mulder and the X-Files are the creation and intellectual property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting. The FBI is the property of the US Government. Oklahoma and Louisiana and Texas belong to exactly who you think they'd belong to, and everything else belongs to Amperage and Livengoo. 

Sorry this is posting a bit late. A weekend away, etc. etc. But that's okay. After all, we're not in a very exciting part. . . . And I don't get much email, so I guess not that many of you are reading it. : ) : ) : ) 

__________________ 

The parking lot of the Dairy Queen wasn't totally full, but it was a long way from being empty, too. Families with their minivans and station wagons, trucks, couples on dates. 

"What is this, the only four-star Dairy Queen in the world?" Mulder couldn't believe the crowd. 

Elijah laughed, a long, clear sound. "Pretty much. The country basket here is a wonderful thing, and they've got Heath bar topping for the Blizzards. You said you needed to use the bathroom? They've got one here." He leaned over and unlocked the cuff from Mulder's wrist. 

Mulder's knees buckled when he dropped out of the jeep. Elijah had come around to the passenger side, and almost had to catch him. 

"Sorry, still a little shaky on my feet." He knew his eyes were still glassy. Shivered in the heat. 

"That's okay. Really. I don't mind at all." Elijah stayed close, reached out to steady him once or twice. They walked across the parking lot at Mulder's pace, slow and steady. The agent glanced around, taking in the cars, and the phone stand on the tongue of land between the restaurant and the gas station next door. Elijah held the door for Mulder, pointed to the sign for the men's room, at the back of the restaurant. 

He'd never thought about the fact that taking a piss felt good, but it was so nice not to have a nurse with that damned bottle trying to "milk" him. He turned and rinsed his face in the mirror, shaky but enjoying the feel of air on skin that didn't hurt with fever, and a head that didn't ache. No Eliot in mind, no fever. Elijah could talk to him now, and he didn't need the visions to understand what was going to happen to him. 

When he looked in the mirror he winced at the dark bruise on his face, the hollows under eyes and cheekbones. He had a feeling he knew what Elijah was seeing, then shuddered at what Elijah would do about it. 

No one looked at him when he stepped out of the men's room. Normal enough. He hesitated. Elijah'd still be in line. There was no exit door back here. Mulder looked out the plate glass at all that space, so far away. And saw black. Black and white to be exact. Swallowed, and recognized the sudden pounding of hope in his chest. There. Two cops, with their dinner, sitting at a table. Oh, god, he might get out of this yet. 

"Excuse me." 

Both of them looked up at him. He took a deep breath, looked up to be sure Jon couldn't see him, back at the two cops. "My name is Fox Mulder, I need your help. I'm. . . " One was looking away, clearly annoyed. The other had an amused expression on his face that choked the words in Mulder's throat. He saw the eyes flicker to his wrist. To a hospital bracelet that wasn't coming off without a knife. And realized that Elijah might not be the only one who saw only what he expected. 

"Look, buddy. I'm real glad you got a day pass, but I know you've got someone looking out for you, and they're gonna be worried about you if you don't go on out and meet them. I bet they're looking for you now." Soothing, patronizing voice. 

"You don't understand. Christ. Look, I'm with the FBI." The annoyed one was laughing now. His friend must have been chewing on the inside of his cheek. Mulder felt his guts twist, and understood exactly what they saw. 

"Listen, kid, you need to start behaving or they won't let you out again. We won't call State this time, but don't let us find you picking on anyone else." They both went back to cheeseburgers and fries and shakes. 

Shakes was just about what Mulder had. A numb, scared feeling in the pit of his stomach as he walked away from them. Elijah was still in line, and waved when Mulder walked by, smiled when he headed back for the Wagoneer. Of course he smiled. He must have figured this out miles back. Not worried at all. Mulder wanted to vomit, and didn't for once. Just walked to the jeep, turned to see the pretty girl at the counter flirting with a handsome customer. It would take a few minutes. He had that much. 

God, staring at the phone and wracking his brains. He walked over, let his fingers drift over the buttons. Closed his eyes and remembered a phone in a room, and he had the number. Fingers racing through the number he could see on his card, see on the keypad. He hesitated. Not much time. He could hear the pulse in his ears, feel sweat on his sides. His balls were light against his body and he had to hold onto the phone to stay upright. He didn't bother to look behind him. Knowing couldn't help one way or the other. 

He finally chose Averman's cellphone number. If the AIC wasn't near a tower he'd have wasted his time, but if he called the Tulsa office number he remembered, he'd waste more while they tossed him around. 

 

 

"They've pulled over a shitload of guys but none of 'em's a match for any of our licenses. We got names and descriptions just in case, but so far they're all clean. No sign of Mulder at all." 

Sam's face was tight as he stared at Averman. "What if he's in the trunk of the damned car? Are they checking?" 

"You know they can't without cause. I asked Dr. Loftus, and she figures Elijah won't do anything that would be uncomfortable for Mulder. It makes sense." 

"Makes sense, hell. Nothing about this makes sense. Marion's sick, Averman. Running a fever. If he doesn't get treatment he. . . " 

The phone was ringing again. Averman's cellular this time. Sam shut up and watched the older man pull the antenna out, hit a button and hold the thing to his ear. And watched his eyes go wide and startled. 

"Mulder? Where the hell are you?" Barely finished the words and Sam found himself yanking the phone out of Averman's hands. 

Marion's voice. God almighty, it really was him, panicky and fast. "I'm at this Dairy Queen just outside of Rusk in Texas and Elijah's got me and nobody believes who I am and. . . " 

"Francis? Oh my god. . . Rusk? Where is he taking you? Does he know you're sick? Are. . . " 

"I don't have time for this, Frito! He just keeps saying he's gonna take me home to Jesus! Get the fuck out here! I am in shit over my head and. . . " 

The clicking tone of the disconnect was the loudest sound in the room. Averman reached took the phone out of his hand, listened, shut it. Sam could feel Tyler and Meyers staring at him. 

"Well. Now we've got a place to start." Jack Averman looked past Sam. "Tyler, you and Meyers get on the phone to Ma Bell. Tell them to get their fucking computers in gear and get us the point of origin. Sam, c'mere. He told you where he was, didn't he?" Averman picked up a pin, spread his fingers across the map. "Give me a starting place, Sam. Let's see if we can pin this bastard down." 

 

 

Mulder let his head fall back against the box of the phone, shut his eyes to block out Elijah's face. Waited and prayed the cops were watching, that someone could get out here before it was too late. 

"You called your friends, Fox?" The cheerful, patient voice snapped his eyes wide open. Elijah wasn't frowning, was smiling. "I hope they're not worried any more. You did tell them I'm taking good care of you? Let's get you back in the car." Set the food on the hood and helped lift Mulder back into his seat. 

When he'd got into his own side, and locked the cuff around Mulder's wrist again, he smiled and handed over the food. "I'm sorry, Fox. You must be feeling pretty silly. I really should have warned you. I figured you might talk to someone, but the state mental hospital is just up the road. It's only natural those two cops thought you were out on a day pass. I wish you could have seen your face when you walked out." Mulder watched him shake his head. Shut his eyes on freedom so impossibly far out of his reach. 

"Eat your country basket. They're not so good when they're cold." 

Elijah handed Mulder a small box and the smell was heavenly. Despite the disappointment heavy and leaden in his stomach, Mulder felt his saliva glands go into overtime, producing more than enough spit for the first time in weeks. He almost tore open the box and Elijah wove out into the four lane. 

The feeling of fear receded in the face of real, live, edible, fast food. 

Six steak fingers, some fries, toast and a small container of milk gravy. Mulder inhaled. Food. Real, actual food. And it had never tasted quite this good. He smothered everything in the cream gravy before putting it in his mouth. The steak fingers were hot and sizzling. The toast soft. The fries were limpid, but good and salty. Greasy. And soooo hot. Mulder ate and ate, conscious of Elijah in the seat next to him, smiling bemused at the scene. 

"You act like you haven't eaten in days," Elijah said, stopping at a light, considering his Texas State Highway map, free at your local tourist bureau. 

Mulder looked up from his frantic devourment. "I haven't," he replied. "You want yours?" 

"You've still got a large Blizzard to go," Elijah reminded him. "And remind me to keep my arms away from you until you're sated. I'm scared any small appendages would get smothered in gravy and eaten." 

Mulder smiled, went back to the dinner. 

He left nothing, not so much as the crisp end of a french fry or a molecule of cream gravy clinging to the side of the cup. Elijah *did* end up giving him some fries and toast, as well as Elijah's left over gravy. It tasted heavenly. Mulder was noshing on the blizzard, having gotten over his feeding frenzy, when he suddenly became aware that something was wrong. It was a vague feeling of indigestion at first, then an odd feeling. The first wave of cramps rolled through his body. Mulder groaned and the Blizzard dropped down onto the carpeted floor of the Cherokee. His body contorted as he wrapped one arm around his middle. The cramp coursed through him, intense and sharp, like he'd swallowed fucking razorblades instead of fries. Wooden blocks were being rolled around in his tender stomach. Something was ripping and tearing at his gut. He was only vaguely aware of Elijah pulling over. Of warm hands. It hurt everywhere. Fuck. Fuckitalltohell. 

He doubled over, pressed against the door, hearing but not understanding Elijah's words. He couldn't think. Couldn't breathe. 

He found his face at his knees and a sharp, cold sweat broke out over his forehead. His spit glands felt funny and odd and he moaned as the cramps passed through him with merciless regularity and as the razorblades kept tearing and tearing. He just wanted to die. Oh fuckinghell. 

Elijah's hand touched him and Mulder growled. He did not have energy for a scream and the way his teeth were locked together, jaw clamping hard, he could not have emitted a scream anyway. A thought rolled through Mulder's head suddenly, without warning and he could not make it go away. You have to vomit. You have to vomit or that food is going to tear your stomach and intestines apart. vomit now before it can really hurt you. You're going to be sick a lot longer as is. Vomit it all up now. 

A wave of nausea started down in the pit of his stomach and Mulder felt his body rolling and rolling, like the torso of a puppy that ate something bad. The door was open and the cuff was off his arm. He stared at the carpet and his knees and didn't have energy to move to the bahai grass. His vomit spewed across the carpeting, spilling over the cup with the cartoon pictures of Dennis the Menace and Margaret and Joey enjoying wintertime pursuits, over the bright red spoon, over the spilled ice cream and heath bar bits. Vomit. He kept expecting to see blood, bright red blood that would indicate that his stomach hadn't been able to take the food, that he would die from a fucking meal at Dairy Queen. But there was no blood. He vomited it all, the chewed up steakfingers and the fries and the fucking country toast. He vomited and vomited and wondered, obliquely, if the peanuts he'd eaten on the flight into Oklahoma City were going to come up. 

When he stopped he wasn't aware of it for a moment. He felt his face pressing against rough denim and realized hot acid and half-digested food wasn't coming from his nose and mouth. His stomach still hurt like fuck, but he wasn't vomiting. His feet were in a stew of vomit, and his jeans were splattered. His mouth hurt and burned and his nose was stuffy. He sat a moment, listening to rustling in the back of the Cherokee. 

He felt Elijah's hands, gentle now. "Come on. Let's get you out of the front seat." Hands undid the seat belt and pulled Mulder out of the seat. He tried to support himself and fell to his knees in the tall grass. The hot sun beat down on them both and the tall cool pines and the long Texas road leading over the hills. Mulder squinted, felt Elijah put hands under his armpits, pull him into the back of the Cherokee to sit. 

Mulder put his head against the leather seat edge, and sat dumbly as Elijah pulled the shoes off his feet and set them down on the front seat. The younger, blonde bent down and got a box of baby wipes. He wiped Mulder's face as he would an infant. Put a wipe to Mulder's nose and told him to blow. He wiped the vomit off the blue jeans and then took the Keds and wiped them clean as well. 

"Do you need to vomit anymore?" he asked, squinting in the bright, late afternoon sun. 

Mulder shook his head, just barely. 

"Okay." Elijah nodded. "We'll stop and get you some water and Gatorade. Come on." Elijah helped him center in the Jeep, get his legs in. He rolled Mulder onto one side and put the cuff back into the ring. Mulder heard more rustling. 

"They had you on Thorazine to control the vomiting?" 

"And the dreams," Mulder said softly. "I dreamed all about you. Did you dream about me, Elijah? Or did you simply know?" He sat, staring at traffic zooming by outside the darkly tinted windows and got no answers. "They said I was crazy. Jon?" he asked. 

He felt the other man get into the Cherokee with him, and then a hand on his waist, the top button on his jeans. 

"NO," Mulder said as loudly as he could, trying to sit up, restrained by the handcuff, by soreness. 

Elijah sighed and grabbed his other hand as he put one leg over Mulder's squirming abdomen. The filled hypodermic needle sat on the tirewell. He snapped on another of the fucking heartshaped, stainless steel cuffs that must have had a self-release latch at some point, although they no longer did, around Mulder's other wrist. "NO. I don't want it," Mulder said, kicking as hard as he could as he could, as his arm was drawn over and he was forced onto his side, one arm cuffed to the ring in what would be the seat back if the seat was up, one arm cuffed to the hold bar above the backseat. 

"I'm sorry, Fox. I'm really sorry." Elijah's voice was soft as he moved down Fox's body, sitting now on Mulder's legs. "I know they hurt you and I know you don't like needles. I know you don't like things that put you to sleep. It scares you. I know. But we need to give you something and this's what the hospital was giving you. I got what they were using." 

Mulder swallowed. "Please. Please," he said, terrified. He would be stoned and Elijah would be driving closer and closer to the coast. "Please don't," he pleaded, very close to tears. He felt the blue jeans unbuttoned, felt his jeans and boxers tugged down. 

"Please don't. Don't. . .Jon. Please." 

The cold of an alcohol prep pad. Then the sharp biting sting of the needle and then the hard ache as the Thorazine was pressured into his butt. It hurt and stung and Elijah remained on top of him, fingers pressing and massaging the spot and it fucking hurt. Mulder began sobbing, twisting his body and fighting and arching, as much as his weak, sore body could or would. 

"I'm really sorry Fox. I'm sorry." Tears choked Jon's voice, but Mulder refused to look at him. 

 

 

"They what?" Averman couldn't believe it. He felt anger grow and threaten to strangle his guts as he and Rodriguez waited on the helicopter. "They did what?" 

"You have to understand," the chief of police said, as he'd already told the Dallas ASAC and the Oklahoma City ASAC. "We have the state mental hospital in our town. People get used to patients. Your boy had a hospital bracelet and he had this. . .well. Sometimes, people who're long term, they can't always buy their own clothes, so their clothes don't fit. And this guy had on a Sooners sweatshirt in the middle of summer and blue jeans and it was all new and all too big. He was wearing Keds for Chrissake, with double bows like a toddler." 

"We fucking put out an APB!" Jack replied, even though he knew how things were. That APB had gone around to a lot of people. A local beat cop in his patrol car didn't have any realistic expectations of seeing Fox Mulder. Oh, of course, if Jack were a cop and somebody who *looked* like he belonged on a wetbrain ward came up and told him he was a kidnapped FBI agent, Jack would believe it. Uh-huh. Oh sure. Still. Logic had absolutely nothing to do with Averman's anger. 

"I hope you've got the roads south closed?" he asked. 

"Yeah. Just did it. Got the Cherokee County Sheriff to run a check of drivers on the main highway." 

But that was nearly twenty minutes ago. Fuckfuckfuckfuck. If Elijah was as smart as Fox said he was, he would know that. He was probably on some small side road, or headed in a different direction. Or something. FUCK. There was a sound like razorblades fluttering and Averman knew their ride had arrived. "I'll be in Rusk in an hour or so," he told the man. "Just do whatever you can." 

 

 

Mulder licked his lips. Opened his eyes. He had a blanket and a pillow. He was hot. Hot hot. His back hurt from sleeping on the carpet. 

He moaned softly. They were still travelling. Mulder looked out the back at darkness. Music filled the Cherokee. He jerked the blanket off. Still hot. Panted. Mouth was dry. He dimly remembered Elijah giving him some water a long time ago, making him wash it around in his mouth and then spit it out and then letting him drink, but that water was long gone. "I'm thirsty," he muttered. "And hot." 

"You're awake?" 

"Yes." 

"We're going to be in Many in just a bit." 

"Many?" Mulder asked softly. 

"Yeah. I figure your friends will be looking for us." Elijah's voice sounded confident. "How are you feeling?" 

"Sore." Mulder couldn't hold the anger out of his voice. 

"Fox. I'm sorry. I just didn't want you to hurt." 

Mulder had no answer for this. He just sighed and stared out the window at the night sky as he suddenly realized he wasn't attached to a handcuff. 

"Are we going to a hotel?" he asked after a while. 

"I had planned on it. . .but I don't know. I feel good. I figure we could drive straight on down." 

Mulder nodded. "You'll stop in Many?" 

"Yeah. I'll stop. I'll wake you up. Go back to sleep, Fox." The voice held a chuckle, like a father reassuring a child. 

He did not want to go back to sleep, but he was too tired to do anything else. He sat up with the last of his strength and took off his sweatshirt, then he put the blanket underneath him, so that the blanket could soften the bed for his back and his butt. 

 

 

There was nothing. Fucking two cops in Rusk. If they'd been listening instead of sucking each other's dicks none of this would have fucking happened. Fucking HELL. Frito wondered why Mulder hadn't pulled a hissy and gotten himself arrested. Mulder was good at hissy fits. 

Because he had been shot higher than the fucking space shuttle. That was fucking why. He breathed through his teeth, sounding like a kettle, stared at the map. They could be anywhere by now. Anywhere. At least Jack Averman would probably chew those damn redneck cops up one side and down the other. 

Averman worked his jaw, reading the responses of the girls in the Dairy Queen. They remembered him. And their uniform description was of someone a bubble off the level. They didn't remember who he was with or what vehicle he got into. He'd come in and pissed and then gone out and used the pay phone. They tried to remember who was in there, but so far no luck. No one could identify anything. FUCKING HELL. He took a deep breath, pulled a Texas state map close to him. Miles had been ringed off by hundred mile radii. They knew where he'd been at five. If Elijah drove like every other Texas driver, doing around 65, that put him around a hundred and fifty miles away. He wouldn't head north or due west. Averman knew that. He took his pencil and blocked out a section. There. Now which way? South and West was Padre Island. South and East was Louisiana's coastline. Either one would be good. Deserted. Elijah was taking Mulder to the coast. To kill him. They had until tomorrow afternoon and then Mulder would be dead. 

Averman felt his mouth fill with bile. He thought about the feel of Mulder's face against his chest as tears streamed down the younger man's face and the feel of Averman's hands on Mulder's wrists, and the feel of the battered hands clutching at Averman's shirt. His gut churned. He wanted to find Mulder's old man and beat the living shit out of the guy. It's over a decade later and your boy is still fucked up from what you did to him. How the hell could you hurt him? How the hell could anyone hurt their kid and then see the fear and the terror and go on hurting them? He breathed through his nose hard and glanced up at the Texas Ranger sitting across from him, handed the maps over. "Tell them to watch to either side. He won't go on 69. He's bright. Very bright. We figure he made his money in the computer industry here in Texas." 

The ranger, who was cast in Averman's mold, considered the flinty eyes across from him. "You know the kid well?" 

"Who? Elijah or Mulder?" 

"Mulder." 

"Well enough," Averman replied, putting his arms up, covering his face with his hands. "Look, just. . .we've got to find him." 

Continued in part 30.................... 

=========================================================================== 

From: livengoo@tiac.net Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 30/41 NC-17 Date: 19 Feb 1996 05:08:57 GMT 

Oklahoma (Part 30/41) By Amperage and Livengoo Copyright October, 1995 

International Readers: No third season spoilers Rating: NC-17 for language and violence 

Fox Mulder and the X-Files are the creation and intellectual property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting. The FBI is the property of the US Government. Oklahoma and Louisiana and Texas belong to exactly who you think they'd belong to, and everything else belongs to Amperage and Livengoo. 

Okay folks. I didn't post last night, so I'll double post tonight. You're well over halfway through this puppy, and I know that you never thought you'd get here. Time to cheer and let me know what you think of the humble efforts of Amp and myself. Bored? Just hanging on from a sense of wanting to complete it? Let me hear from you. And to those who spontaneously threatened me out of the goodness of their hearts, thank you! It makes my day to get a decent threat with the morning coffee! 

______________________________ 

"Hey." The voice was soft. Mulder blinked. 

"Hey," he said back, sitting up. Elijah stared at him, ran a hand through the soft blonde hair. "Okay. I want you to drink this." 

`This' was a small cup of OJ. 

"Why?" 

"Just drink it. It'll make you feel better." 

Mulder considered the stuff and frowned. He took the small plastic cup into two shaking hands and swallowed. It tasted odd. Strange. He stopped. 

"All of it," Elijah insisted. 

"I don't want anymore." 

"You have to." Strong hands on the cup, holding it. Putting it to Mulder's mouth. "It won't hurt you." 

Mulder tried to resist, but the stuff went down. 

"I put your Thorazine in it," Elijah said, taking the cup away. "I got you some Gatorade, too." 

Mulder stared at the soft blue eyes, the gentle blue eyes. "You what?" 

"You put Thorazine in OJ because otherwise it's bitter." Elijah smiled. "And I figured it was easier than giving you a shot in your butt." 

"Where are we?" Mulder asked softly. 

"Headed for the water. Louisiana beaches don't. . .they're practically empty. We'll go at night when no one's there. Someplace secluded." Elijah pulled a bag out of the front seat, pulled out a cotton blanket and a light green t-shirt. "Let's get the t-shirt on." 

Mulder stared at this man. "You were my friend once. I don't understand." 

"You will. Everything will be okay. I promise." 

"We played freeze tag in front of the church. We ran through the vestibules, screaming with pleasure. Ariel. . ." 

"Fox, I'm going to take us both somewhere where we can't be hurt. Don't you remember how your father would hit you? Don't you remember how it hurt, all those broken ribs and broken bones?" 

"It was my fault my dad hit me," Mulder spat out angrily, not meaning to, not caring anymore. 

A look passed across the perfect patrician features. "You want to tell me what happened to Sam?" 

Mulder took the t-shirt, tried to get it over his head and then needed Jon's help. His head was swimming. 

"Scrunch way over and we'll spread the hot blanket out for underneath to make your back and bottom feel better," Jon said kindly. 

Mulder looked away. 

"Why was it your fault your dad hit you?" The voice was gentle and patient. 

Mulder rolled over until he was pressed against the edge of the Cherokee. "Fox. What happened to Samantha?" 

Mulder closed his eyes and shook his head, rolled back onto his back, heard the rip of a package and then cotton was spread across him. 

"Did your dad kill Samantha?" It was a tired voice. 

Mulder tried to open his eyes, but he was being drained of anger and strength. "I lost Sam. It was my fault," he said simply, biting a lip. He might be a serial killer, he might be fucking taking Mulder to his death, but once upon a long time ago they had been children running through the vestibule of a small church. There had been laughter and the blue of summer lawns after church. There had been, one Christmas, a tall, gawky girl who had shyly accepted a thin, sterling silver ring from a tall, gawky boy. Mulder stared in Jon's eyes, seeing the insanity and the pain. "Samantha, when she was eight. . .she disappeared. I was in the room. Mom and Dad were out," he said simply, feeling the drug tug at him. "How could you think that Dad. . ." 

"He hit you so much," Jon said with a shrug. "I remember when Momma was sick, we'd go see you when the hospital kept you because you were hurt. He hurt you so much, Fox. Maria, she used to cry after we were finished seeing you." 

"My dad didn't hit me until after Sam disappeared," Mulder said, pushing hard against the muzzy fog that was invading him. "He never hit me until then. That was *My* fault. MY fault. . ." He put his head against the pillow. "He didn't hit me. My dad loved me. He always loved me. He only hit me because I lost Sam." 

Something sad and unidentifiable passed across Jon's face. "Okay, Fox. Okay," he said softly, patting Mulder's hand. "Okay. You go back to sleep. I'll wake you when we get to the coast." 

Mulder stared at the retreating figure. He felt an urge to say it again. "Dad loved me." 

He did not see the tears that stained Elijah's face as he reflected on the delusions that his friend had built to continue living. It would be different in heaven. It would be all right in Heaven. Fox would remember everything and they would see Mary and Sarah and everyone would be happy in heaven. Maybe Samantha would be there for Fox. Fox would be all right in Heaven. 

 

"The Federal Bureau of Investigation is working with state and local authorities in a three state search for any information pertaining to the location of Special Agent Fox Mulder. Mulder, a psychologist specializing in profiles of serial killers and other violent criminals, vanished from the Oklahoma State University Hospital, where he was being treated for an as-yet-undetermined illness. Agent Mulder may be unable to request assistance due to illness. 

Also being sought in connection with both Agent Mulder's alleged abduction, and the brutal killings of several area children, is Jonathan Elijah Gragg. Gragg in in his mid-twenties, blond, and muscular in build. Gragg is to be considered armed and dangerous. Anyone seeing either man is urgently requested to contact the FBI or the police. The FBI is posting a reward for information leading to the arrest of Gragg or the location of Agent Mulder." 

[Attachment: Official identification portrait of Fox Mulder, and police artist portrait of Gragg] 

ASAC, Dan Harlan rubbed his bloodshot eyes and scanned the release again. "Shit, I hate doing this. We'll start getting calls on every pair of men from here to the Mississippi. Maybe ten percent of 'em will be close to the description. I guess it's our best shot right now, though. Okay, run it out to all the local affiliates and all. You know how it's done. Any chance we'll make the ten o'clock news?" 

Cooke let his head drop back, and worked his neck muscles. He could feel his tired eyes twitching under the lids. "Not a hope in hell. We'll make the morning news, though. Here, Texas, and Louisiana. Do I need to get Averman's signature?" 

"Nah. Mine'll do it. Besides, I sent him back to his hotel. Told him I'd put an armed guard on his door if he didn't get some sleep. He and Rodriguez'll be worse'n useless if they don't get some rest tonight. Your guys okay?" 

"PR's used to these hours." Cooke's smile was dry. "Early bird and all that shit. Sign that fucker and let me go rack up some overtime." 

Harlan nodded, put his Bic to use and watched Cooke's thick frame weave its way back to his cluster of people. Breathed a silent prayer that for once, PR could do more than just make the Bureau LOOK like it was doing something. 

 

The Grand Cherokee blasted through patches of mist, following its headlights down the long, straight stretch of road just south of Leesville. A middle-of-the-night talk show kept up a soft counterpoint to the whine of the road, and Elijah smiled to himself at the beauty of God's own night out here. Fox's drugged breathing from the back was steady and regular whenever he rolled up the window and listened for it, but right now the gentle scent of the pines at night was too alluring as it kept the rank air of the car at bay. Elijah drew in deep, heady lungs full and put his foot down, loving the sweet flash of the road under his wheels and the way the night flowed like water around the jeep. 

Sixty-five miles an hour ever since Many, and they were making good time. Midnight traffic south was sparse and fast. A luxurious yawn stretched his jaw and made a popping sound in his throat. He figured another hour and a half to Lake Charles, get a room. . . 

Flashing red and blue lights ahead, and he gently tapped the brakes, letting the big tires grip the mist-slick pavement. The cop standing next to the cherry-red mustang eyed him, but turned back to the blonde in the pony car. Elijah breathed a soft prayer and smiled at the black and white, receding in his rear-view mirror. "Thank you, God," he murmured to himself. Reached back to put a gentle hand on Fox's hair, seeing the peaceful way the older man slept. "See, just like I told you. God's will. We'll be home real soon, and then you'll feel better." He turned back and picked up speed again, trusting that the rest of the way would be clear. When the talk show degenerated to insults he popped in a tape and let the sweet sound of children singing God's praises carry them the hour or so to Lake Charles. 

The roads were mostly empty now, and only the occasional, lonely window showed in the dark behind the jaundiced spill of the streetlights. The big Cherokee had the road to itself as Elijah pulled around the lake. I-10 exit ahead, and he smiled and whistled cheerfully at the big hotel he could see coming up on the left. Downtowner. Right, that looked perfect. Mid-week and the parking lot was mostly full of rental cars and econoboxes, but he found a spot right up by the lobby. 

Elijah's back twinged when he turned in his seat, stiff muscles pulled in his shoulders and forearms. He sighed, seeing that Fox hadn't changed position in more than an hour. The poor man would be stiff as a board, but it couldn't be helped. No one nearby, and a good view into the lobby, so at least he could leave the windows down. The blond breathed a silent thanks to God when he stepped down and finally got a breath of fresh air. He couldn't exactly blame Fox for not wanting to take the Thorazine, but he did wish he'd known about this whole matter one country meal sooner. 

A pallid young man looked up when he pushed through the door, and audibly shut a heavy book. Elijah could see his thin shoulders shift as he pushed it to one side and sat up straighter, managing a tired smile that looked like it came with the uniform he wore. When he stepped up to the counter, Elijah could see a Calculus 101 book, and he stifled a smile. 

"Sorry to take you away from your homework." Elijah smiled. 

"S'okay. It was getting hard to concentrate, anyway. Welcome to the Downtowner." He caught himself and put back on his official, hotel training. "What can I do for you?" 

"I need a double through tomorrow. I mean, through Thursday." Elijah did grin, now. Watched the young man enter figures on a keyboard. 

"Okay. . . I have a double on the fifth floor. . . with a view of the Lake. Will that do?" 

"Perfect." He was pulling out his wallet even as the kid totaled up the bill. 

"Sorry to have to charge you for two days, with you getting in so late. That's ninety-five, even." 

"It's no problem." He handed over the cash. "Look, I've got my brother-in-law with me, and he's feeling pretty bad, can you help me get him into the elevator?" The kid - his name tag read 'Atcheson Everett Smith,' poor thing - smiled and was out and in the lobby a moment later. 

"Sure, let me give you a hand with him. . . " 

"It's not against the rules or anything?" 

"Service. That's what they keep telling us, service. Besides," Atcheson's smile stretched even wider, "right now anything looks better than differential equations." When Elijah opened the door and the smell hit him the boy looked like he might reconsider that opinion, but he stayed, sharing a slightly pale look of commiseration with Elijah. 

Fox rolled himself tighter into a ball when they tried to pull him upright, but Atcheson got his legs pulled around and out, and Elijah got an arm around his ribs, supporting his weight. His gym bag over the other shoulder, and they were ready. 

"Whew. . . you weren't kidding when you said he was sick. God. . . " The boy slammed the jeep door, then ran ahead to get the door for them. Elijah managed Fox well enough once they were in the lobby. By then, the agent was starting to wake up and walk more steadily. Atcheson got the elevator for them, and Elijah handed him a ten dollar bill. 

"Thanks. I think I can get him from here, but you've been a big help." 

"Hey, no problem!" Whatever else he was going to say was cut off by the doors, and Elijah pulled Mulder upright for the short, five floor ride. 

"Okay, Fox, we're going to walk down to our room. Come on." He glanced at the key in his hand, pulling the taller man along with him, relieved that Fox was walking, no matter how unsteadily. Fitted the key in their door and reached inside to flip on the lights. "Come on, let's get you cleaned up and in bed, then you can sleep as long as you like." 

"Where're we?" Mulder was staring around with glassy eyes. Elijah paused, studied him. 

"You're awake? Good. We're in a hotel. We'll get you cleaned up, and then we can tuck you in again." Fox watched him with sleep-puffy eyes, as Elijah found a glass on the bureau, and poured him some Gatorade. "Bet you're thirsty after that long sleep." He could see the way Fox's tongue caught, dry, when he tried to wet his lips. 

Shaking hands took the glass, but Fox just held it there. Elijah could feel him pushing it away. 

"C'mon. . . there's nothing in it, if that's what's worrying you." He kept his voice soft, guided the glass as Fox finally pulled it close and drank it in messy gulps, spilling a little down his chin. Gave him another and helped him get it down. "Now let's get you cleaned up and to bed. . . " 

The drugged man's steps were a little steadier, though still dragging on the carpet as Elijah guided him into the bathroom. Stripped off the stained, green t-shirt and the blue jeans, pulled the Keds off. He reached over to run warm water in the bathtub. "You're going to have to help me here, Fox. You're too big for me to pick up, but you'll feel better if we get you cleaned up." It wasn't so hard, really. The agent moved slowly, but he pretty much did what he was told, and Elijah didn't have to worry about him slipping under the water the way little kids could do. It didn't take long to get him washed and shaved, and have him wrapped in a towel, getting his hair dried. Elijah left him sitting in the bathroom, propped against the sink, and folded another towel in one of the beds. Poured a glass of Gatorade and added another dose of the Thorazine, setting it next to the bed. 

"Come on, I know you're still sleepy." Mulder's face was still slack, but his eyes seemed more focused, and he tracked Elijah closely. The younger man got him up, and into the bedroom. Elijah found a pair of boxers in his gym bag and helped him into them. "I've got more Gatorade for you." 

Mulder licked his lips and visibly tried to gather himself. Elijah had the glass pressed into his hands, holding it steady so the liquid wouldn't spill. One sip and Mulder's long nose wrinkled. Elijah sighed as he pulled back, turned his head to avoid the glass. 

"Fox, you need to drink this. I know you don't like it. . . " 

"I donn't want it." He was still slurring, but forcing the words out. Elijah's mouth tightened, lips pulled thin with regret, and tried to pull Mulder's head around. 

"Come on, Fox. It's going to be easier for you if you drink. . . ." Hissed as the agent slapped the base of the glass. "Damn it!" Sticky, yellow-green liquid splattered all down Elijah's front, and Fox scuttled back on the bed, away from him. 

The young man screwed his eyes shut against the quick burn of anger, felt his fists ball up tight and small. Long, deep breaths slowly unknotted his shoulders and arms, and he opened his eyes to see Fox, crouched at the foot of the bed, watching him intently. He carefully moved into the middle of the room, keeping between Fox and the door, and backed up until he could get his gym bag from the table next to the picture window. 

"We've been through this before, Fox. I'm sorry. If you won't drink it, I have to use a needle. One way or the other, you need to take the Thorazine. It's not for that much longer. . . " 

His fingers found the bundle of medical supplies in the bottom of the bag, and he glanced down to pick out a bottle and a sterile syringe. The faint sound of feet on carpet brought his head up, finding Fox braced against the wall, trying to edge towards the door while Elijah was distracted. A step sideways put Jon in front of the door, and Fox slowly backed up into the room, shaking his head in careful, deliberate motions, never looking away from Elijah, who filled the syringe in quick, sure, movements. 

"I don't want the drug." The effort to say each word clearly was audible. "I want all of you to just leave me alone." 

Elijah felt the weariness of the long drive, and of necessity, pushing down on his shoulders. All he wanted now was a little sleep, the small peace God had granted to mankind. He did NOT want to fight with Fox. Bracing himself, he stepped in and away from the door, gauging the way the agent moved. He was slow and clumsy from the drug still in his system, but adrenaline could still give him a short burst of speed. 

"Don't you see, Fox. . . all of us felt that way. Most of us feel that way again. If Jesus had left us alone, we'd all be damned." A careful step, two, into the room. "Sometimes, we can't leave each other alone and still be true to our consciences, still be true to God. . . ." 

Jon edged into the room a bit more, turning on the television as he passed it. The sound flooded the room, loud enough to cover most of the noise they might make. Mulder was on the far side of the second bed, edging towards the head of it. He'd have to roll across the bed to get to the door past Elijah. Jon gauged the distances, and Fox's speed, and feinted at him around the foot of the bed. 

Fox dropped and rolled, as he'd known he would, too clumsy from Thorazine to be able to simply dive across the narrow mattress. Elijah lunged and grabbed his ankle, yanking him back and dropping onto his back to pin the thinner, taller man down. Fox tried to scream, and Elijah had to force his face into the comforter to muffle him, keep him softer than the television. 

Fox was thrashing wildly now, like he had in the Cherokee, trying to throw Elijah off of him, or hit him hard enough to knock him off. Elijah scrambled until he had a knee in the small of Fox's back, the way they'd taught him in wrestling in junior high school. He'd need to be off-balance to inject the drug, and even weak and muzzy, Mulder might still be able to push him off. Elijah shifted his weight to make it harder for Fox to throw him off his back. Twisted until he could shove the boxers off one hip and drive the needle into the clenched muscles of Fox's skinny butt. Winced at the shriek as he pushed the plunger down, driving the drug into the muscles with what couldn't help but be painful speed. 

Fox was still thrashing, trying somehow to keep moving enough to fight the Thorazine off. Jon wrapped his arms around him, letting him lash out, feeling the blows get lighter, weaker. His breath was caught in his own chest, but with grief rather than exertion as Fox slowly lost the tension and slipped into the cloudy, compliant mood of the drug. 

Elijah rocked him as he felt his old playmate slide into calm. Words spilled out of him, even though he knew Fox was too far away to hear them now. "I'm sorry, Fox. I'm sorry. I wish you could understand. You've slipped so far into the dark. . . You don't leave us any other way. Your friends didn't want to hurt you, but they didn't know how to help. And I don't want to hurt you. I'm sorry, you didn't leave me any other way, but I'll make it better. You'll see. I am taking you where you can be whole and well and safe. It's not for very much longer, Fox. It's not." 

A faint gleam showed under dark lashes, but Mulder's face and body were slack with the drug. If he knew what was happening around him, it was only in the faintest, vaguest way. Elijah sighed with relief and stroked his hair, settled him back and pulled the comforter up over his shoulders. Almost as an afterthought, he snapped a cuff around Fox's wrist, and the other, heart-shaped cuff around the bed frame. With the drug in his system, Fox probably would never know it was there. 

"There. See? It won't be for very much longer. . . " Kept stroking his back, the way he had with the smaller ones, soothing people for whom sleep held terrors. "Remember Eliot, Fox. . . 

The inner freedom from the practical desire, The release from action and suffering, release from the inner And the outer compulsion, yet surrounded By a grace of sense, a white light still and moving, Erhebung without motion, concentration Without elimination, both a new world And the old made explicit, understood In the completion of its partial ecstasy, The resolution of its partial horror. . . Time past and time future Allow but a little consciousness.'" 

Three in the morning. The too-bright green numerals marked the dark behind Elijah's lids when he let his head rest heavy on his hands. Pulled himself straight on the indrawn breath and reached over to set the alarm. Two hours' sleep, and then he'd be on his way. 

 

In Oklahoma City Maryann Parmenter called her husband, woke him out of a sound sleep, and let him know he'd have to get the kids ready for school in the morning. He grumbled a moment - PR wasn't supposed to drag his wife away from home the way her sales work had - but he knew she was on Cooke's media contact team. He wished her luck and went back to bed, setting his alarm to get him up an hour early. 

 

Jack Averman slept restlessly and dreamed of the faces that never came home from Vietnam. He'd woken twice and phoned to see if any word had come in, but for all the activity there was very little news to be had. He finally slid back into deeper sleep, waiting for morning. 

 

Sam Rodriguez, next door, kept his lights on. He didn't want to be alone in the dark. His back ached and he couldn't find a comfortable position to sleep. The sky was faintly gray when he reached over and dialed his home in Virginia, listening for the sleepy voice on the other end of the line. 

"Mmhm. Hello?" He felt his face pull into a smile, seeing her with her eyes shut, and her hair tangled and spread on the pillow. 

"Hi, Jenni." 

"Sam?" He heard her come suddenly more alert, and bit his lip at a twinge of guilt. "It's five in the morning. Are you all right? Did you. . . did you find Fox?" Her tone dropped, soft and worried. 

"No baby. I'm sorry I woke you. . . " 

"It's okay. Sam, I don't mind. . . it must be four o'clock there. . . ." He could hear her jaw crack as she yawned, and her words were muffled and stretched by it. "Have you heard anything?" 

"No. Well, sort of. Marion got ahold of a phone for a few minutes. We know they were heading south. That was around five in the afternoon. We haven't heard anything since. The roadblocks and all just came up totally blank." He stopped, swallowed against the tight pain in his gut. 

He heard her take a deep, long breath. "Do you think he's. . . I mean. Sam, do you think he's still alive?" 

"You've been around me and Marion too long. But, yeah. We've got another analyst helping. She's still in DC, but she thinks he'll pick a really visible means. . .God. I don't want to talk about this with you." 

"It's okay. You won't give me any new nightmares." He could hear the sad smile in her voice. "How are you holding up?" 

"I'm fine." Screwed up his face as his voice cracked on the words. Sniffed in through his nose. "I just. . . I wanted to hear you. I should have waited. . . " 

"No, you shouldn't. I hate getting in and hearing those messages on the machine, and then having to wait or call all over hell's half acre to reach you. I'm glad you called. I've been worried about you." 

The hiccup of laughter hurt deep in his belly. "I'm not the one in trouble out here." 

"For a smart man, you say some really dumb things. You want to tell me what you're doing out there?" 

"No. I. . . we don't really know what more we can do right now. Maybe. . . Jenni. Will you do something for me?" 

Her sigh was long and kind. "Sam. . . " 

"I know you don't really. . . I. . . Jenni. Will you go to church tomorrow. And say a prayer? Light a candle? For Marion and, I guess, maybe for me?" His teeth hurt his lip, and his throat felt tight as he listened to her breathe. 

"Of course, Sam. I'd love to. Of course I'll pray for you. Pray for you both." 

He had to sniff in, rubbed at his nose. "I love you, Jenni." 

"Me too, Sam. Can I do anything else? Call anyone?" 

"No. I ought to hang up." 

He could hear her breathing. Then. . . "Why don't you just stay on the line, Sam? Just so I can hear you there?" His eyes stung a little, and his nose felt stuffy. He wiped at it. Cleared his throat. 

"Okay, Jenni. Okay." 

Continued in part 31.................. 

=========================================================================== 

From: livengoo@tiac.net Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 31/41 NC-17 Date: 20 Feb 1996 06:25:46 GMT 

Oklahoma (Part 31/41) By Amperage and Livengoo Copyright October, 1995 

International Readers: No third season spoilers Rating: NC-17 for language and violence 

Fox Mulder and the X-Files are the creation and intellectual property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting. The FBI is the property of the US Government. Oklahoma and Louisiana and Texas belong to exactly who you think they'd belong to, and everything else belongs to Amperage and Livengoo. 

_____________________ 

The rising sun flashed off little pools of water and put a haze across the windshield as Elijah drove over the border into Texas. The radio news told him things were as bad as they'd been for the last century. He nodded, unsurprised by the news, and prayed softly that the lost souls of the world might find peace. The Christian talk show was about Jimmy Swaggart's plea for money. The comments put a brief jeer on his face. It was un-Christian of him, but he had rather hoped that Swaggart's bluff would be called. 

With Texas housing tracts around him, he tuned in the local news and listened to the bulletin about the missing FBI agent. That might make things interesting, but he wasn't too concerned. A little care on his part, and God would see him through. Traffic was heavier now, and he smiled to see it. Hard to see license plates with the sun in your eyes, too. Yes, God was good. 

 

Robert Gastineau scratched his balls and poured a cup of strong, black coffee. He sighed and made a face at the taste. The water here tasted differently than it had back in Austin, and he still wasn't used to it. More iron or something. He dumped in sugar and grabbed a piece of toast, leaning against the kitchen counter and turning up the news. Hopefully the traffic wouldn't be so bad today. There'd been some kind of problem with the parking lot booth the day before and it took forever to get out of the lot. 

The local anchor had terrible hair, but a nice jawline. Bobby watched his lips move a moment before he realized the man was talking about Okie U. Hospital. The picture had changed by the time he got the sound turned up more. A photograph and one of those police sketches that could be anyone you saw on the street. This one looked vaguely familiar, though. . . 

". . . are also seeking Jonathan Elijah Gragg, in connection with both Agent Mulder's disappearance and the slayings of several area children. Anyone with information regarding Gragg, or the location of Agent Mulder is urgently requested to contact . . ." 

Bobby Gastineau didn't really feel the hot coffee splash his legs as his cup hit the floor. All he knew was that his hands were shaking when he tried to dial the number he saw on his television screen. 

"Hello? Is this the FBI? Oh god, give me a moment. My name is Robert Gastineau. I know Jon Gragg, except that's not what he calls himself anymore. I mean. . . look. I think I know the man you want, the one on the TV. Who do I need to talk to?" 

 

 

"So what's this asshole's name, and how does he know our boy?" Jack Averman ate two Tylenol and washed them down with bad, FBI coffee. 

Harlan flipped through the thin file in his hands. "Robert Michael Gastineau. Moved from Austin, Texas to Oklahoma City about two years ago. Apparently he used to party on down with Gragg, back in Austin." He handed the folder over to Averman. 

"Okay, let's see what he can tell us." The interview room was cool and white, with clean walls. It didn't have the smell of stale sweat and fear that local cop shops decorated with, but the feeling was there nonetheless. Gastineau sat with all four of his folding chair's feet firmly on the ground, and the sickly, fluorescent light picked out the sheen on his forehead. Averman settled down across from him and studied him. 

"Thanks for coming in, Mr. Gastineau. I'm Jack Averman. I'll be taping this if it's all right with you?" He flipped open his badge, let the young man across from him look it over. Let his hand hover over the tape recorder until he got his badge back and a nod from Gastineau. "I understand you know Jon Elijah Gragg." 

"Yes. Yeah, I do, but he goes by John Gregory these days. Umm. . . " He rubbed his face. Averman saw a man, perhaps in his early thirties, good looking and well built and scared shitless. Leaned forward. 

"I want you to know we really need your help on this matter. You told the agent on the phone that you'd seen Gragg - Gregory - on Tuesday morning?" 

Gastineau nodded. "Yeah. I work at Oklahoma State and. . . look, am I going to get in trouble for this?" 

Averman ground his teeth. "No. We need your help on this one, we're not likely to be pressing charges or anything." He managed a thin grin. "If it helps, we think a man's life may be in danger if we don't find Gragg soon. Anything that you can tell us might help." The man across from him took in a deep, hard breath and some kind of barrier seemed to break. He let his head tilt back and nodded. 

"Okay. I hadn't seen Jon since I'd come up here, and I was really surprised. He said he was into a pretty heavy scene, and he needed. . .needed Thorazine. Oral and IM. And syringes. I got them for him." 

A sick thrill ran through Averman's gut. "How much Thorazine does he have? Could he keep a man drugged for several days?" 

"God, he could keep a man in orbit for weeks with what he's got. Somehow I figured. . . I thought he was using this for an orgy, you know?" The pleading tone put Averman's back up, but he swallowed the reaction. 

"Excuse me a minute. Would you like a cup of coffee?" The relieved nod gave him an excuse to get out of there smoothly. Averman shut the door, turned to the guard. 

"I'll be back in ten minutes. Give him a coffee, and set one up for me. He's cooperating, so we're polite as shit to him, okay?" The young man nodded, hurried off to do what he was told. 

Rodriguez must have been told where the AIC was, because he was in the hall, shifting from foot to foot with impatience. He fell in next to Averman as the older man traveled down the hall with a long, ground-eating stride that was almost as fast as a run. 

"Well?" 

"We just started. I've got a new name. The Cherokee was registered to Gragg, but his credit cards are probably under John Gregory." A quick stop in the nerve center. Watkins had gone home, but his assistant took the new name and rushed off to get it distributed so they'd get word the minute John Gregory's cards surfaced for a purchase. 

Averman turned back to Rodriguez, retracing his steps to their gold mine and giving the doctor what little he had as yet. "It looks like Elijah's got enough Thorazine with him to keep a small city stunned. We're not going to be able to count on Mulder coming out of it and being able to contact us." 

The doctor slammed his hands together in helpless frustration. "Oh shit. Oh SHIT. I'm beginning to think the bastard's right and God's on his side. Fuck." 

 

 

Elijah smiled at the sweet, young thing at the rental car counter, and handed over his credit card. She was able to run the card through the slide, grab a pen and hand the whole collection of card, slip and pen to him without ever dropping her eyes or her flirtatious smile. 

"Now, all the conditions are on the reverse, and you can return the car to any one of our offices." She was running her finger down a long list of numbers in a booklet, making sure his card wasn't stolen. He kept the mild expression on his face and waited until she was satisfied, and had turned her perky face back to him. 

"Wonderful. You got an office down around Corpus Christi?" The keys jingled softly and reflected the bright sunlight streaming into the airport terminal. 

"Oh, yes, sir! I'm sure they'll be glad to help you any way they can. We have other services. . . " She was reaching for a handful of brochures. 

"That's all right, Miss Emerson. I know the way. But thank you." He signed with a flourish, tearing off his copy and tossing it into the trash. 

The humid, blast-furnace heat of Galveston hit him as he left the terminal, walked past the parked Cherokee, and got into the rented sedan. Nine in the morning, and he'd be back in Lake Charles by noon. He worried his lip as he considered the timing, then decided that Fox would be all right if he got back a bit late. 

He pulled onto Route 45 and headed back up to Houston. A quick stop at a Wal-Mart for new clothes for Fox, and one at a car dealer, and he'd be ready to go. He smiled to himself, and popped one of the gospel tapes he'd salvaged from the Cherokee into the tape deck. 

 

 

The voices wouldn't let him sleep. A dried trickle of spit pulled and cracked at the corner of Fox Mulder's mouth as he rolled onto his side and groaned. His mouth tasted like something had died in it, and his ass hurt like someone had been beating him. So hard to think through the cotton-wool in his head. . . He didn't know how long his eyes had been open before he realized he was looking at the other bed. It was another forever before he understood that the bed was empty. He tried to pull his arms in, to shove himself upright, but there was a cold, steel pull on his left wrist, and a fucking, heart shaped cuff that held him to the frame of the bed. Mulder stared at it, trying to put everything together and wanting to scream with frustration as the thick, stubborn fog choked his thoughts and kept threatening to send him back into a hazy nothing. 

No one else was here, he was sure of that by now. The bathroom, across the room, was empty. Drawn curtains. He tried to think of why they'd be drawn, and remembered a pretty lake, a cool balcony. Looked with sudden hope to the door, but the 'Do Not Disturb' sign wasn't hung on the knob anymore. No one would be coming in to help him. Fox sagged back onto the bed, yanked at his wrist in forlorn hope, but the cuff held him and refused to open. Between the beds, an electric clock told him it was about eleven in the morning. On the bureau, snug against the opposite wall, some talk show prattled on and on. The phone, next to it, might have been a million miles away. 

Mulder sucked in a deep breath, and screamed. Screamed long and loud for help, over and over until his throat was hoarse and his breath came in little pants. And no one even pounded on a wall. Middle of the fucking morning in the middle of the week. And whoever had been in the rooms to either side was driving away somewhere in a business lunch, in their business suits, with phones and help and people in reach. Everyone but Mulder. He wrapped himself around a pillow finally, and felt the sure knowledge that he was all alone, and couldn't even get out of this bed. 

He curled up, back against the headboard and rocked back and forth glaring at the telephone and getting angrier and angrier as the drug slowly pulled its claws out of him. The headboard slammed the wall as he started hitting it, lashing out sideways with the one hand that wasn't cuffed. Hit it over and over, until he could feel the pain of it even through the fucking Thorazine and it didn't make a bit of difference. No one heard him, no one pounded back or knocked or came to get him out of here. Mulder was panting with the anger as he tumbled out of bed, slammed his hand against the wall and dented the damned wall board. He was too angry and scared to hold still no matter what. He slammed the wall again, seeing the bloody smudge his knuckles left. He tried to pull the lamp up, but it was bolted to the nightstand. Found himself yanking on it, shrieking in rage and past any thought or reasoning until he finally dropped to his knees, exhausted. 

The cuff still pulled his left wrist tight, tethering him to the bed frame. Fox stared at it and felt the slow anger kindle again. Wrapped both hands around the chain of the cuffs and dug his heels in and pulled with everything his skinny body had left. When it moved and he fell on his ass, the pain that shot through him made his vision swim for a moment. God, the muscles in his butt hurt. It took a while to realize that something had moved, or he wouldn't have fallen. 

At first Mulder thought the chain had given somehow. It took forever for his drug-fogged wits to understand that the whole bed had shifted towards him. When he realized, he bit down on his lip to hold onto the surge of hope, and dug his heels in and pulled again. And it moved. 

"Jesus Christ. . . " he breathed, hearing his own slurred voice and not really caring. Moved closer to the head of the bed and wrapped his hands around the chain and pulled again, sobbing as the bed hung up on the nightstand, and yanked until he had pulled it loose. 

Mulder was gasping for breath, muscles aching and wrist a bruised mess by the time he'd dragged the bed into reach of the phone. He sagged onto the floor, phone dangling off the edge of the bureau, as he desperately tried to punch Averman's cellphone number in. A recorded voice told him that the number he wanted was out of service or out of range, and he slammed the disconnect button in frustration and tried again. By the third repeat he was sobbing in frustration, teeth clenched and face red with the tears he was holding back. Finally dialed the operator and begged for her to put him through to the FBI. 

When the voice answered he thought it was the sweetest thing he'd ever heard. He drew in a sniffling breath. 

"My name. . . " His voice caught in his throat. "I'm Fox Mulder. Help. Please. . . " 

"Sir," whoever this woman was, her tired, irritated voice held no patience for him, "please state your business clearly. Your call is being taped." 

"I told you, I'm Fox Mulder." 

He could hear a sigh, cut off short. "Sir, I'm transferring you to one of our field agents to address your call. We have received numerous calls regarding Agent Mulder, and there may be a short wait. Please hold on." Across the room, the clock ticked off the minutes after noon, as he sat and listened to muzak. Mulder gulped, swallowing another sob. And gradually became aware of the midday news on the television over his head. 

When he leaned out, phone clutched in his bruised right hand, left still held taut to the bed frame, he could see his own face, and a grainy snapshot of Elijah. He swallowed as he listened to the news announce him as abducted, and he saw the phone numbers on the screen. He'd been on hold more than three minutes. And the number was up there on the screen, broadcast across the entire, fucking state. Mulder felt his face pull up into a sob or a scream as he remembered just how many people phoned that kind of number. Hundreds. Maybe more. He curled back against the bureau and hung up. Deep breaths. Hard ones. Then he tried again, dialing 9-1-1. 

And heard nothing. Waited and waited until a recording finally announced he'd been disconnected and advised him on how to get directory assitance. The second time it happened he wanted to beat the phone into little bits of plastic and chips. He tried once more, and a sudden memory flashed, almost too fast to catch. The Washington Post, maybe. And a story about phones. And about 9-1- 1. 

And this area didn't have 9-1-1. His teeth were grinding and his neck hurt with the fury racing through him. Mulder struggled to get another breath in past the anger and the despair. Fuck this, he couldn't think. Slammed his head back against the cheap veneer and chipboard, over and over until the pain in his head matched the pain in his hands. 

Finally, he tried the phone again. There was no point dialing the local FBI, they'd just put him on hold again. One phone number was clearer in his head than any other. He dialed the long distance exchange for Washington, D.C. and waited as the phone rang at VICAP in the J. Edgar Hoover Building. Sitting there, with his left arm stretched back behind him and his aching right hand wrapped around the hotel phone, Fox Mulder prayed, for the first time in years, asking a god he didn't believe in to please, please let someone pick up the damn phone at VICAP before the fucking answering machine kicked in, or Elijah walked through the door. 

 

He dreamed of Ellen in her smooth green dress. Garters without panties and her breasts were soft underneath the sturdy cotton bra. Her father's farm and the hot Oklahoma sun. The little Mustang, wedged tight in the back seat, rising and arching with his hands against her sweating back. Her face, soft and her eyes those of a gentle doe. They had walked through the endless, sweating fields. Her short black hair. "Did I ever tell you how beautiful you are?" Jack asked, raising one of her small hands to his mouth. 

Ellen laughed and her laughter was like listening to the sound of crystal bells. Her neck was smooth and long and the hollows collected sweat, tempting his mouth to rove and his tongue to feel. The green dress with only garters on. His hands pushing against her legs, feeling the soft, warm curve of bottom and her nervous shiver as her eyes half closed. 

"Did I ever tell you that I loved you past anything? That I will always love you? That you are my entire world and everything?" Jack whispered, wanting her to understand his desire. 

"I know." Ellen stared into his eyes. She was not the college coed of twenty five years ago. She was his Ellen. His Ellen who had chanced to cross an intersection when a trucker wasn't watching. His Ellen that they had pried from the frame of his Mustang. 

"I love you so much." Jack pressed her tiny, bird-like frame, against his chest, wrapped her tightly in his arms. "I love you so much." 

The smell of her White Shoulder's perfume was heavy in his mouth and nose as he buried his head in her raven hair. 

 

 

"Averman?" The SAC's voice was sharp. Jack Averman blinked several times, clearing cobwebs. His eyes teared as he remembered. He said a silent prayer. He did not know if it had been a dream or if it was, somehow, Ellen. He knew what he would choose to believe. 

"Yeah," Averman said, finally, sitting up on his bed. 

"John Gregory used his credit card this morning. Just got it in. We think he's headed to Corpus Christi." 

Averman blinked and swallowed. "Oh hell," he muttered. "Oh fucking hell!" A sudden smile slid across his face. 

 

"VICAP." The tart voice wasn't one Mulder recognized. He sat a moment dumbly. Some part of his mind had expected it to be Sandy or Kay, the secretaries. He took a deep shuddering breath. 

"This is VICAP." The voice repeated. 

"Hello?" Mulder said shakily. "I'm Fox Mulder. . ." 

"No more sick jokes please," the voice said sharply. "Now state your business. This is an internal line authorized only for. . ." 

"I want Sandy or Kay. Where's Kay?" Sandy, twenty pounds overweight and forever bitching about how life was unfair that Mulder could eat and eat and if she looked at a jelly donut her thighs expanded by four inches at least. Kay, bubbly and blonde always ready for a good pun. 

"Sandra Markston and Katherine O'Neal are on other assignments." 

Mulder closed his eyes. He hurt. Everything hurt and he was tired and now there was some woman who didn't know him. And he was tired and sleepy and Elijah was coming back anytime and. . . 

"Is there someone else you would like to talk to?" 

"Thompson?" 

"May I have your name?" 

"Mulder." The phone clicked in his ear. 

Mulder closed his eyes, curled up with his chin against his knees, just curled up. He was beyond angry, in some strange quiet place where anger just didn't matter anymore. He saw his body lying in state and he saw the cemetery and the quiet plot and the rich, living smell of water curling in across the grass. 

He sniffled and tried to think. Dialed the number again. 

"VICAP." 

"I am. . ." A sob interrupted. Mulder did not know where the strange, tight sound came from, but it was obviously within him. "I am Fox Mulder and I want someone I know. I don't know you. I want them NOW. He's gonna kill me. I want Kay or Sandy or Thompson or even Gillis or Johana. I want. . ." another strange, sharp sob. "I want somebody!" 

Mulder heard words and voices and the phone started to click and then a voice. 

"Hello, this is VICAP, will you please state your business?" 

"Sandy?" Mulder sniffled. "Sandy?" 

"OHMYGODIT'SMULDERSOMEBODYGOGETATRACE." There were voices now and then Sandy's soft voice. "MULDER? Is that you? Mulder, where are you?" 

"I doan know. . .nobody believed me." Mulder closed his eyes, listening to that familiar voice. Sandy. Up in Washington D.C. an overweight woman named Sandy was wearing a headset and talking to him. Somewhere somebody was listening to him. "I. . ." Another sob rocked him, made his gut hurt and twist and churn. "I. . .I doan know where Elijah is. . ." 

"Tell us what you know. . .it's okay. Fox, look around you." New voice. He didn't know it. 

"I want Sandy," Mulder sniffled as the familiar, gentle voice was torn away. "Where's Sandy?" 

"I'm here." Voices buzzed. In his head? On the phone? "Mulder. Tell us what you know?" 

"I'm in a hotel room." 

A pause. 

"Is there a number on the phone?" 

"57." 

"Are you alone." 

"Yes," Mulder sniffed. 

"Can you leave?" 

"I'm chained to the bed. Nobody's here. They put me on hold when I said I was Mulder. . ." 

"I know. We've had a lot of calls. . ." Long pause. "Mulder, is he giving you anything?" 

"Thorazine." 

"A lot?" 

"Yes." 

Continued in part 32................... 

=========================================================================== 

From: livengoo@tiac.net Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 32/41 NC-17 Date: 21 Feb 1996 08:54:19 GMT 

Oklahoma (Part 32/41) By Amperage and Livengoo Copyright October, 1995 

International Readers: No third season spoilers Rating: NC-17 for language and violence 

Fox Mulder and the X-Files are the creation and intellectual property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting. The FBI is the property of the US Government. Oklahoma and Louisiana and Texas belong to exactly who you think they'd belong to, and everything else belongs to Amperage and Livengoo. 

And thank you to the nice people who wrote and gave me good stuff to read with the morning coffee! Goo ________________ 

Elijah's hand was strong. The phone went back on the cradle. 

Mulder stared and scooted back, back to the headboard, behind it. Felt his stomach rise in his chest, balloon against his lungs. He could not swallow. Closed his eyes. 

A soft and gentle voice. 

"Fox. It's okay. It's okay." Elijah was there suddenly. Mulder was trapped in his corner. "Fox. I won't get mad. It's okay. I was gone a long time." 

"I don't *care*!" Mulder spat out. "I don't *care*! You're wrong. When you die it's all black and death and decay. There's nothing and no one! THERE ISN'T ANY GOD, you fucking faggot! There isn't any God. He doesn't exist. There isn't any heaven. You just killed those children. You sent them down into the darkness and you KILLED them." 

Elijah's breath was deep and he just sat there, waiting. It was not much of speech, and it was hard for Mulder to get the words out, hard to summon the anger. Mulder didn't care, he sat, seething, puffing breath out through his mouth, staring at his captor. 

Mulder watched the pretty boy looks and the healthy tan and the lithe, athletic frame and suddenly his free hand snaked out, began hitting. Elijah dodged and then grabbed Mulder's free hand. Mulder didn't care. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered. Elijah was going to take him to the coast and kill them both and nothing would matter then, except to the maggots. There was nothing, no heaven, no hell, nothing but darkness, endless, eternal darkness. Sam was dead. Sam had been dead for a long time. 

Elijah made the mistake of bringing his hand close to Mulder's mouth as he sought to contain the older man's hand without causing any further harm. Mulder snapped hard, teeth meeting on air. Elijah sighed. "Fox. Don't do this. Don't let your anger talk for you. I know, you're far into the darkness. I know you're scared. I know. But, don't do this. It's all going to be all right in just a little bit." 

"NO IT'S NOT!" Mulder yelled as loudly as his hoarse voice would allow. 

Elijah let got of Mulder's hand and scooted away. Mulder put his face in his knees and braced for what was to come. 

Elijah worked for the hand first and Mulder kicked out hard, kicked and screamed and tried to move and he felt his bare feet connect again and again on Elijah's legs, although he never hit the genitals, which would be his prize goal. Eventually his free hand was cuffed and attached to the leg on the floor, turning him over so that his face was pressed up against a fake pattern of wood. Mulder squirmed and kicked and screamed, but it was an easy matter for Elijah to simply sit on his legs and then the boxers were bunched down below his buttocks and the needle hurt. Oh fucking hell it hurt so bad. He felt Elijah's hand against his bottom, massaging the bruises and the tired skin and felt the fire rushing up and radiating out and he could not control it. It hurt so bad. . . Mulder bared his teeth against the sudden fuzziness. Bared his teeth and growled and bucked hard. 

Elijah rolled off of Fox as the drug reduced his friend to incoherence. Another 75 milligram shot. More than was recommended. It was the only thing he could do to give his friend some relief. This last had been horrible, like watching a dumb animal faced with something unknown. And Fox was in such bad shape. Jon hadn't planned to be gone so long. Rent a car, buy a car, come back here. He'd used his Dallas account. Greg Johannson. He knew that no one had that name yet. 

Greg Johannson. Elijah remembered Luke and smiled fondly. Luke's hands had been gentle and his kisses moist. And how incredibly young and stupid Elijah had been. The big bedroom and the story that Luke was his cousin. The prayer breakfasts with Pastor Crisswell and never telling the truth because the other christians did not understand the truth of love between men. Luke had been older but it had never mattered. And when Luke died, there had been the trust for Elijah. For Greg Johannson. Elijah already had the stock investments. Done what Luke said to do. 

Luke was in heaven. 

Elijah sighed and smoothed the hair sadly. His friend was so confused and frightened. Oh God, what had Fox's dad done? The blood from a cut in Fox's scalp smeared Elijah's hands. Fox'd hurt himself. One wrist, the one first cuffed, was cruelly marked and puffy now, and looked horrible. The other hand was cut open and bruised. He was going to lose the fingernail on his littlest finger. Elijah vowed to keep Fox down until it was over. He didn't want Fox to hurt himself again. Didn't want Fox to go through the fear. 

 

 

Sam Rodriguez rubbed his eyes and tried to focus on the words. Mulder had called VICAP. 

It hit him. Mulder had fucking called VICAP. He was muddled and hysterical and didn't sound too good and the conversation had been cut off and they didn't have a perfect trace, but they knew the area code. 

Mulder had called VICAP. Sam listened intently, leaning over close to listen to Jack Averman speaking over the helicopter's radio. They were half-way to Corpus now and it turned out Mulder was in Louisiana? Louisiana of all places? Jimmy Swaggart and New Orleans all in one pot pie. 

Rodriguez felt his stomach lurch and realized that they were turning. Beside him, Meyers turned green. Meyers was Rodriguez' idea. If they found Mulder before. . . When they found Mulder, he was likely to have problems. Extremely ill, possibly psychotic. Mulder trusted Meyers. If Rodriguez or Meyers were there the likelihood of Mulder cooperating with the program went up several notches. 

Rodriguez put his head against the warm metal frame of the helicopter and told himself that Jenni was right. He needed to stay in fucking D.C. 

 

 

Mark yawned and finished pouring milk over his raisin bran, flicked on the kitchen TV and began eating. It was still quiet in the house; his parents weren't in from work, his kid sister was still in school He was out of classes. He'd eat and then stumble into bed until ten, an hour before his shift at the Downtowner started. 

Nothing, nothing, nothing. Mark left his finger down on the cable remote and surfed through the channels, letting the TV scan for signs of intelligent life. None of the good cartoons were on. He settled finally for CNN and turned up the sound. 

The weather. Hot and muggy with a continued chance of hot and muggy. Oh wow, like how could he have guessed *that* one? 

Entertainment. . .yeah, yeah. Lisa Lisa's smiling face. It wasn't a bad song in a boring little way, Mark guessed. He yawned again. 

Gorby and his anorexic little woman. . .Mark finished the first bowl and reached for the purple box. 

"In other news, the search for Fox Mulder, the kidnapped FBI Agent, continues today with police intensifying their search along the Texas coast. The FBI has said that they. . ." Cut to a press conference but Mark wasn't listening, he was staring at the photographs open mouthed. 

 

 

Elijah sped along the narrow road leading through Cameron Parish. It was all so much marsh. Marsh and the smell, when he rolled his window down, the smell was one Elijah had almost forgotten. Rich and teeming and full of humus. He laughed at the alligator crossing sign. How very, very quaint. Made even the quainter by his knowledge that the sign had not been put up as a come-on to tourists. No, these people really had to worry about alligators crossing the road. 

Fox murmured something to himself, face buried deeply in the pillow. Elijah sighed. It would not be long, not now. 

 

 

The hotel room was empty. The State Police had sent in their SWAT team and come up with absolute-fucking-zero. Rodriguez felt the snap of gloves. Prophylactic gloves. God, Rodriguez remembered Mulder had a hysterical story to tell about a date who liked Mulder wearing the damn things like he was her gynecologist. Crime Scene tape. At least the state police didn't have far to go. Their regional headquarters were about three hundred yards down the beach. The beach. Rodriguez looked out the floor to ceiling glass window, across the lake at a metal balustrade, at a concrete and stone structure, at luxuriant live oaks. Sailboats. Bayliners. Party Barges. Bass Trackers. People were relaxing in the warm, gentle sun. Probably didn't even know that a federal agent was somewhere, drugged and sick and dying. Didn't stop to think that there were kids being beaten somewhere in their fair city. Kids who would grow up to scream in the dark. Hell, some of those people in their fiberglass and aluminum boats might be the ones who wielded the belts and the broomsticks. They might also be the ones who still started sometimes, wondering when the next blow would fall. 

The local field agent, who specialized more in fugitives and interstate drug-running, a big burly man, was talking with Averman. Rodriguez went into the bathroom. 

Needles. Two needles. A single vial. When Rodriguez picked it up he read a familiar label. The same label he'd been staring at since he'd given Mulder his first shot of Thorazine. He hissed through his teeth and shook out an evidence bag. 

"In here." Meyers' voice from the bedroom, high on the register. 

Rodriguez moved quickly. 

Meyers was staring at the bed post. He was staring at a dent in the wall. He was staring at marks on the headboard. Rodriguez flashed the scene. Mulder's hand beating against the wall. Mulder beating his head again and again, screaming in frustration and rage. 

Sam dropped to his knees. Mulder would have had to pull the heavy bedstead five or six feet. There were small dark spots on the floor. Blood. Elijah had cleaned thoroughly, but not under the bed. Blood. 

"He didn't leave towels or anything?" 

"There weren't any in here," Field Agent Marleson replied drawling. 

"Can we get someone to check the laundry?" Rodriguez asked Averman. "I'd like to see if Elijah shoved bloody towels out the door or something. It might tell us if there's any head trauma or damage to his hands." 

Averman eyed the marks in the headboard and nodded. "I'll put someone right on it. You're thinking self-inflicted?" 

Rodreguiz nodded. 

"Okay." 

 

 

Holly Beach. Hwy 27. Holly Beach. Elijah took a right, like he'd been told. He drove and drove and saw the ocean pounding against the Gulf. It was not home. It was not the Atlantic. It was not the Vineyard. But it was the ocean, full and round. It was the pulse and throb of the water and the force and the smell of salt and decay and life. It was the water. One could almost hear the toiling of the bell on the Dry Salvages. 

 

 

No other clues. No one had seen them leave. No one had seen a small black Cherokee Limited with wood panels, which they had been told was Jon's current vehicle "but he buys a new one every year or so. When he gets bored. You know?" 

No, Rodriguez did not know. Jon, Jonathan, Elijah, whatever the hell the guy's name was, had money. Money pouring out his ass. Been some rich old family oil baron's "companion" in the late seventies and early eighties and been left a trust fund and tons of money of his own. 

Hell. They had the local TV stations running bulletins. Hell, they didn't have to fucking ask. The most exciting thing to happen in this little backwoods town in years. They probably had convenience store clerks eyeing every man who came in, hoping to be the one who spotted Elijah and Mulder. 

It was a good bet where they were headed, according to the local authorities. Cameron parish. There were two roads going north/south into Cameron Parish. And when a hurricane came out of the warm humid waters, Rodriguez was told, they evacuated Cameron Parish and the roads only went North. Two lane one ways for getting the hell out. The Cameron Parish sheriff and his deputies were putting word out, and the State Police were rushing down. Cameron Parish only had one patrol car. Well, two, but that was counting the sheriff's car, and that belonged to the sheriff, he just charged the parish for mileage when they used it for official business. 

Putting up roadblocks, combing the beaches. They'd find them. They'd find them and Mulder would be safe. Mulder would be safe from Elijah anyway. 

 

 

"Hi." Carlyss eyed the young man with his dark hair and light skin. He should have been born a blonde, but some freak of nature had made him a soft brunette. He was fine too, and even in his loose OP shorts you could still tell what kind of butt moved underneath. Oh my, and that smile would just about melt you down to your Keds. You couldn't see his eyes beyond the wide Hobie frames, but Carlyss was sure that would just finish off the picture that was making her feel weak. 

"Hi yourself," she flirted. He set down two cokes and two Gatorades and two boxes of sandwiches. She rang him up. "You going fishing?" 

"Yes'um." The man smiled and pulled out his wallet. There was some more money in that wallet too. "Like Peter and James and John." 

Oh fuck, why'd he have to be another one of those religious nuts. One of them fundamentalists who spent entirely too much time worried about church. Go to confession, go to mass, go to communion and when the time came you had all your ducks in a row, right? Carlyss didn't understand why normal people took it this far. It was like, even the priests weren't so annoying. Yankee protestants. She chewed on her gum and whipped out a bag, keeping the friendly little high-school bimbette checkout girl look firmly frozen on her face. 

Pity too, as fine as he was. You know, she bet if she got him good and horny, he'd drop all that twelve apostles shit. 

"They say people been catching them all along the water's edge." 

The man nodded. 

"Which one of the cabin places is best?" the man asked, as Carlyss bagged his food. 

"Well. . .Margaret Simms has the Rest-your-head. They're on a par with the rest, but Margaret's are a lot cleaner." 

"They're on the water?" 

Carlyss nodded. Oh word he was fine. She could give him the sacraments in spades. 

"Yeah. Go down to the Get-n-Go and there's a road that says Public Beaches? Take it. The road to the beach goes straight, but there's a right hand road with some fresh gravel. Take it. Tell her Carlyss Anne says hi." 

The man thought this through and nodded. 

"You not from here?" 

"I'm from Leesville." 

"Oh." Sleezeville. No wonder. Carlyss Anne didn't know psychology, but she understood a few things. "Well. You pass a good time,now." 

"I will." He took his bag and walked out to his big, brand new white Suburban. He'd boughten it in Texas. Some people. Gotta go to a big city for every little blessed thing. Carlyss sighed and reflected that she could learn to appreciate hand-waving if the price was right. 

 

"A buddy and me, wanna' do some fishing. I heard the specks and the reds are running in the surf." 

Margaret Simms nodded. "Five days you said?" 

"Yes'm." 

"Okay. . .That comes to 220." She fairly licked her lips as the young man shelled out money. He smiled at her. Margaret took the three hundred dollar bills and went to her cashbox. She glanced at the wanted poster of Jonathan Gragg and Fox Mulder pinned above the 8x10 Wal-mart photo of her latest grandbaby, Ashley Renee. 

"They've got checkpoints out all over," the man said, adjusting his worn Astros cap. "Got stopped twice on the way down here." 

Margaret nodded. He didn't fit. Brown hair, not blonde. Besides if he and his buddy didn't go surf fishing she'd call Bubba Landrineaux, the Sheriff and inform him. 

"You're in the last cabin," Margaret informed him, handing back the eighty. "Number four." Margaret handed him two keys and some towels. "I don't think I put any out there." 

He smiled and pulled at his brim for her. A gentleman. Didn't get many of those down here. Even if they did drive fancy trucks. 

 

"Come on." Elijah's hands were strong. Mulder, snuggled around his pillow and the blanket, did not want to move. He wrinkled his face tight and clung to his fetal position. 

A sigh. Strong hands, holding him and pulling him. 

Just let go. It's so easy. The darkness is not so very bad. 

No. 

He smelled salt water, heard the roar. Seagulls screaming. Wind and the taste of the air. 

Rush and retreat. 

"DoyouthinkyoucanwalkordoIcarryyou?" 

Mulder opened an eye. Sea Grasses. Sand. Endless horizons of blue. 

Strong hands. It's so easy. It won't be very long. 

Feet on sand and he cannot. . . Lifted up and move your feet. So hard to do. The bed and the sound of waves collapsing on the sand. Pull your wrist up and snap. Waves roll and suds. Endless blue horizons. 

Spinning round and round and round on the empty places. Aunt Mira is tending the old graves. So many names. Mostly Mulders. His dadda had told him he looked feral when he was born so he named him Fox, but there was another Fox Mulder here too. Feral meant you looked like a fearsome animal. Fox liked to pretend growl at Dadda, when Dadda was being nice. He spun and spun and spun among the grasses. You could hear the ocean from here. You could see the ocean from here. Spin and spin and spin. His arm hurt in the cast. Someday Fox would die too. But that was okay. Spin and spin and spin. You went to heaven when you died. This was just for people to visit so they wouldn't get lonely and so your descendants could go to be reminded that you'd been here once. 

 

 

Sam was gone. Fox's fingers dug against the molding as he hung in the doorway. He didn't like Reverend Agayar. He smelled funny. And they'd made the Graggs leave. It wasn't fair. Mary had been his girlfriend. 

The Reverend was saying things about God's will and generous creator. Fox did not speak. He stayed quiet, and hid in his room. And sometimes he could forget that Samantha was gone. Sometimes he knew she was back. At school it was best. He could forget all day. Besides if he wasn't quiet they would hear him. Dad and the things. If he was quiet Dad would forget about him through suppertime. Fox dug his fingers deeper into the molding and edged back out. 

Everyone lied. Everyone said. Everyone lied and it was like Fox pretending Sam was back. If you pretend very hard you can make it real to you. But it isn't real. God was a story that people made up. He slipped out the kitchen door without a sound and went into the backyard. Huddled against a tree. If there was a God then God had let them take his sister. God had done this. But there wasn't a God. There never was and there never, ever had been. 

There were only maggots and stench and nothing else. Fox put his head to his knees and wrapped his hands around his chest, pulling at the skin until he left his ribs in bruises. On top of the old bruises. Until he could just barely stand to breathe and sometimes wished it hurt bad enough not to breathe. 

He felt like crying, but he could not find the energy to cry. He couldn't even cry anymore. 

Continued in part 33............... 

=========================================================================== 

From: livengoo@tiac.net Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 33/41 NC-17 Date: 22 Feb 1996 03:27:54 GMT 

Oklahoma (Part 33/41) By Amperage and Livengoo Copyright October, 1995 

International Readers: No third season spoilers Rating: NC-17 for language and violence 

Fox Mulder and the X-Files are the creation and intellectual property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting. The FBI is the property of the US Government. Oklahoma and Louisiana and Texas belong to exactly who you think they'd belong to, and everything else belongs to Amperage and Livengoo. 

___________________ 

He felt so heavy, the air in his lungs was hard to expel. It hurt to breathe in, to breathe out, hurt to be. Air on his skin burned, and his muscles ached on his bones. When Mulder opened his eyes, the lids grated. 

He didn't know he'd made a sound. He didn't see Jon, but he was suddenly there. Mulder's skin crawled as a strong arm wrapped around his shoulders and helped him sit up, propped him against pillows, and a cool hand smoothed the hair back from his forehead. 

"Here. You've been asleep a long time." Elijah let him see the seal on the lid of the Gatorade before he twisted it off. Mulder wanted to reach for the bottle. His mouth was so dry. Elijah finally put a straw in the bottle, and held it to his lips. Mulder drew a sip, leaned back to catch his breath. 

"I haven't been asleep. I've been drugged." The words rasped from his throat. Sorrow creased Jon's smooth face, thinned his lips. 

"You left me no choice." 

Mulder just stared at him, finally took another sip of the thin, swamp green stuff. It was cold in his throat and he shivered, but pulled more of it into his mouth, letting it chase the thick, woolen sourness from his tongue. His chest heaved, trying to draw in a breath as he let the straw slip loose again. Sharp twists of pain lanced from his hips and butt every time he shifted, wracking his back. He let his head fall onto the pillows. "Why?" 

How Elijah ever heard the whisper was hard to say. When he leaned forward the sun shaft from the window limned his hair and lit a glow in the peach fuzz on his skin. "I don't understand, Fox. What do you want to know?" His voice was gentle, as though he feared it could shatter the man in front of him. Mulder's eyes were wide and dark in a smooth, pale face as he pulled his head upright again, staring into blue eyes that showed just the first hint of crowsfeet, lines of stress and pain pulling the muscles around his eyes. 

"I don't want to die. Why are you taking me?" Mulder's voice was low and calm, too exhausted to be angry or frightened in that moment. Elijah stared into his eyes, and licked his lips, tongue hovering at the dry edge of his lower lip, to dart out and moisten it. Instantly caught it between his teeth and looked away. 

"Don't make me stay, Fox. Please. . . it hurts so much." His voice was still quiet, but low and choked now. His adam's apple worked as he swallowed. Sucked in the air in a sniff. Looked back. 

"You know, I heard Jesus when I was small. He spoke to me, and his voice was so gentle." Mulder didn't look away, watched the blue eyes scrunch shut on some memory. Features still rounded by youth drew into a tight pattern of flushed skin and pain. "When it was just me, I could still hear Him. . . " 

"What do you mean?" His head was too heavy for his neck, and Mulder let the muscles drop it sideways, seeing the way his vision fogged at the edges and hearing the slow slurring of his words as the drug clung to him. 

"There are so many of them, screaming, and I can't hear Him anymore, Fox. All the little ones, and so many of the big ones, too. It hurts so much, and I don't want to stay any more. . ." Elijah's soft face was pulled like a child's, wrinkled and red, eyes glistening. 

Fox felt his mouth go dry again. Shifted off the bones of his ass, trying to ease the pain of the bruises. "I understand, Jon. I understand that they hurt you, and you don't want to stay, but that doesn't give you the right to kill. . . " 

"No! No, oh Fox, oh God, why can't you understand? I can't betray all of them like that. . . ." Elijah's shoulders shook as he tried to calm himself. Turned his face from the light that burned across his hair and sparkled in the wet trails under his eyes, his nose. Rubbed his sleeve across his nose. "I'd take them all, help them all, if I could. I can hear them screaming so loud and it hurts so bad, and they won't stop hurting them. You scream so loud in my head." He bit his lip until the skin around his teeth was white from the pressure. 

"I. . . listen to me, Jon. Please." Mulder felt the dry fear of hope in his throat. Forced himself up on his hands, leaning forward. His shadow narrowed the bar of light trapped by dust, trapping the killer. "I never called you, I don't want what you're offering. I don't want to die. I don't want to go with you." 

The sadness in Jon's eyes was as deep as the night, and smoothed his face again. "You scream so loud, and you can't even hear it. I'm betraying them already, Fox. All the ones who call to me, and scream to me. I can't save them all, Fox. I'm not the Savior, I'm only one man. And I want to go home, Fox. I'm so lonely, and it hurts so much. . . " 

"It's all right, I understand." He could not afford his conscience, it would kill him. "It hurts you. But, Jon, it doesn't hurt me." His hands, on his own chest, felt the fear and dread in the quick pattern of his breaths. "You aren't taking me home, that isn't my home, I. . . " 

He pulled back. Elijah was reaching for him, pity and grief and sorrow on his face. The hand on his hair was gentle. Mulder tried to hold still, very still. "It hurts to stay, and it hurts to know how many I'm leaving, betraying. There are so many who need so much, and I'm so tired. But I can't leave you. That's just. . . you were our friend, and I didn't see it. I can't let them hurt you any more, Fox." Mulder stared at him, and felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. Finally shut his eyes. He was tired of looking at dead ends. 

 

 

"He puked all in it." Averman's voice was tired as he watched Rodriguez' eyes open, watched the compact, dark skinned man sit up on the couch in the State Police offices. Meyers was in the john, taking a crap. "They found his Cherokee in day parking at Houston Airport." 

"Oh Fuck," Sam muttered, rubbing his eyes. "Fucking hell." It was no more than they had expected. But the knowledge still hurt. "I called St. Patrick's, Captain O'Donnell said it's the best hospital in the region. They've requested Marion's records from University Hospital." 

Averman nodded, watched as the pathologist stretched. They all ached with the search and the lack of sleep and the intensity of the last two weeks and the grief. 

Meyers came out, slumped into his chair. Averman related the news. Watched Meyers absorb it. The kid was abso-fucking-lutely shellshocked. He was functioning; he was trying hard, but the case was having its effect on him. Hell, who wasn't it having an effect on? Averman himself must look the same way. Sam was just sitting there. "What else did they find?" 

"A sweatshirt, umm. . .more empty needles and bottles. Several empty Gatorade bottles. The same thing we found in the hotel room." 

"Did the hotel ever find the towels?" 

"No. They'd been sent off and were already being laundered." 

Rodriguez nodded. 

"The Coast Guard is going to start heavy patrols," Meyers said tonelessly. He looked at Averman and for a moment the AIC didn't know what Meyers was asking. 

"I keep forgetting you've lived on the coast," Averman said. "Do you want to coordinate that?" 

"If I could be their FBI link," Meyers replied. 

"Are you sure you're up to it?" 

Meyers shook his head. "But I've got to do it. Mulder is my friend." 

Rodriguez stared at his words. "You know. He doesn't have many friends, Meyers. I'm glad he's got you." 

Meyers nodded, a simple acknowledgment of a lonely, hurt man. 

 

 

Jon considered the fishing poles and reels he'd bought in Houston. The tackle box and all the various lures and baits and weights and corks and hooks. He'd torn everything out of its packaging and put it all into the tackle box. Jesus had been a fisherman, but somehow, Jon doubted Jesus had ever had to worry about Rattle Traps and Cacaho Minnows and which weight of monofilament line to buy. 

The combo already had line, but he'd had to figure out how to reel line in on the others. Fox was asleep, drugged again. But Jon had only used a few milligrams of Thorazine. Not like the other dosages. Fox hadn't wanted it, but had been cogent enough to realize it would only be harder if he didn't acquiesce. He hadn't been willing enough to drink the stuff, but he hadn't contracted the muscles in his bottom and he hadn't kicked as much when Jon sat on him. It gave Jon the option of choosing the least used site. 

Jon had no idea how to put on some of the baits. The rattle trap was pretty simple though. A bright, stainless steel convex piece of work about an inch long with shot in it. Two sets of treble hooks dangled underneath and a little bit of paint had been added to make it look even more like a small fish. He tied the line onto the round ring on top of the bait. Put other lures on the other rods. It didn't matter if they were the right ones. The sun's dying resonance and fire cast soft purples and pinks across the sky outside the patio doors. Jon had tossed a towel over the Jenny Lind frame so that no one would see Fox's handcuff if they walked by and looked in. A couple of people had walked by, but at that time the angle of the light had been such that they couldn't have seen in. 

"Jon?" Fox's voice was soft. 

Jon finished with his bait and got up. Fox was staring at him. "Jon. Let me go." 

"I can't." Jon wiped Fox's brow. 

"If I die, Sam won't be able to find me. Sam won't know where I am," Fox muttered, staring at Jon. 

"What if Sam is dead?" 

"Sam's not dead," Fox replied, shaking his head. "Sam's not dead." 

Jon did not know what to think of this. It might be something confused in Fox's mind, or it might be another one of the delusions that Fox was using to keep himself functioning. "Tell me what happened to Sam again?" 

Fox stared at him a long time. "I was babysitting. And then they came and took her. And I didn't stop them." 

"When was this?" Elijah let things click in his mind. 

"Right after you left." 

"I didn't stop them," Fox repeated as though this were important. 

Jon considered this information. Fox had made it sound like a stranger abduction. Now ugly thoughts were forming in the back of Jon's mind. "Who took her?" 

"Oh. . ." Fox's eyes half-closed. "Oh the ones. The ones who used to come." 

Jon bit his lip. He remembered Fox, sweat beading his brow and biting his lip, trying to act brave because Mary was in the room. Terrified of darkness. Several scenarios played out in his head and all of them were ugly. 

"She's not dead. They just took her. She's coming back. Please, Jon. If you have to go, all right. But Sam's coming back and I've got to be here." 

"We're going where Sam is," Jon hushed, not wanting to enunciate the images Fox's words had created. Not sure how Fox would react. "We're going to go where Sam is and it'll be all right." 

"She's *not* dead!" 

Jon took a deep breath. 

"She's not dead. She's not dead," Fox ranted. 

"Okay," Jon calmed. "It's okay." Fox didn't remember all the abuse. Had there been sexual abuse? Jon remembered the physical abuse. Sexual abuse, no, he didn't remember that, and he'd thought Fox hadn't put out the right. . .smells. .. for sexual abuse. Now, looking at his old friend, staring at the desperate, pleading face, he wasn't so sure. Someone had abducted Samantha. Someone who had hurt Fox before. 

"We're going to go driving," Jon said, finally. He had been certain and sure of what he had to do, but even if he hadn't this confession would have resolved the matter for him. He could not leave Fox here, not in this state. 

Fox looked up at Jon, desperate. "I *have* to be there. When she comes back. I have to be there. Don't kill me, Jon. I have to be there when Sam comes home. Don't you understand?" 

Jon nodded and thought of how good it would be for Fox when he finally did get to heaven and Sam was there. No, probably no sexual abuse. But then, there didn't have to be. The damage to Fox's soul had been just as great as any child Jon had sent on to heaven. He watched his friend sorrowfully and wondered how many more children would suffer while the world watched blindly on. It was so fucking unfair. 

 

 

The pen stood upright in a mass of sodden french fries and congealing ketchup. Sam Rodriguez stared at it, choking down the urge to giggle. He pushed the whole mess - fries, pen, cold, brown-rinded burger and all - into the trash can next to his desk where half full cups of stale coffee fermented, splattering the side of the desk. 

"Get out of here, Rodriguez." Sam looked up at the AIC, taking in the grizzled stubble and the odor of ground-in sweat and Louisiana dust. 

"Fuck off, Averman." Rodriguez was too tired to put much tone into it. He rested his head in his hands and let his fingers massage his temples. Felt lank, black hair, heavy from days of work, of sleeping on couches, and scrambling for the next empty room or abandoned car. 

Jack Averman sighed, settled onto a chair, straddling it backwards. His sleeves were rolled up and Sam could see the farmer's tan that ended at his wrists. "All right, Doctor. Tell me what you're working on that's so important?" 

Sam rocked back, feeling the sprung frame of the chair. "Same as you, Jack. Reviewing any report from the coastal regions that doesn't include Elvis. Passing them on to the cops or Meyers." 

Averman eyed the stacks of files, nodded. "Find anything worth checking out?" 

"One or two. Not many. When you start phoning on them you keep finding that one guy's too old, or black. I don't know how these people can live with that few functioning brain cells." 

"Relax, Rodriguez. You really do need to get out of here. There are other people here who know how to use a phone." 

"I. . . " The ringing phone kept Sam from having to tell Averman what he really thought of the AIC's opinion. He reached for it so fast he almost knocked it off the hook, scrambling to get the thing to his ear, hoping that one of the rare reports had borne fruit. 

"Sam?" 

"Jenni?" He didn't know whether he was more happy or disappointed. 

He felt his shoulders sag, leaned forward to rest his elbows on the desk. Averman took in the expression and the posture, and got up to go. Sam looked up at him, seeing a disappointment mirrored in his face that put a painful tightness in the pathologist's chest. The older man nodded at him, turned and walked away, feet dropping into each step with a heavy solidity that spoke of days of nervous wakefulness. Rodriguez turned back, rested his forehead on his hand and listened to his wife's voice. 

"Sam, honey. They said you were in Louisiana, and the news out here. . . " 

"Yeah. We were following a false trail into Texas and Marion got a phone call out. He called VICAP and they traced it to. . ." 

"We heard. We heard. Have you heard anything else?" 

"No. Jenni. . . " He had to stop, take a few deep breaths. "We found the hotel room they'd been in. He'd. . . this bastard is drugging Marion, and he was hurt. There was blood. . . I think he's getting worse. And Mulder said Elijah was coming back to kill him." 

"Sam. Oh God. Sam. I went to church for you last night. . .Look, Sam, Daddy's here. . . " He heard the phone fumbled and handed off. 

"Senator? I didn't expect. . . " 

"Where else would I be, son? I gather you've had bad trouble out there." 

"Yes, sir. I imagine you've been in touch with the FBI?" 

"You imagine correctly, Sam. They say you don't have a solid lead on where the Butcher's taking your friend yet." 

"No." Sam pulled one hand down over his face, hard, pushing against nose and eyelids, feeling the slick, oily sweat. "No. We found the hotel room the bastard used last night. There were empty Thorazine bottles. And blood on the floor." 

"I met the boy, didn't I? That young man you two had over to dinner, Fox Mulder?" Sam grunted an affirmative. "You think this. . .Elijah's harmed the boy?" 

"I don't know. . . actually, I think Mulder might have hurt himself, trying to get loose. I think. . . God. I think even if we get there in time to stop Elijah that Marion's going to be in trouble. I think he's so fucked up by now. . . " He had to bite his lips to stop the words and fear from spilling loose. Turned so that all he could see was the wall, so that the rest of the room knew only what his back could tell them. 

"Yes. Jenni said he was ill before he was abducted. Sam, son. . . listen. I know you've got a hard time ahead. I want you to know that. . .if you find him, you won't have to worry. I'll help. I'll do whatever I can to help. Do you need anything out there now? Are the Louisiana people helping you? Do you need me to put a word in?" 

Sam sniffed, felt a small laugh escape him. His face felt wet. "No, sir. Thank you. No, they're bending over backwards out here. We've got Meyers, he's a young kid, out with the Coast Guard on patrols, and we're handling the roads. The state troopers are doing everything short of a door to door to find them. I just don't see what more we can do. . . now it's just wait and see." 

"And that's the worst of all, son." Sam sat back, heard Senator Matheson sigh. "I'll be keeping up on this end. You just let me know if I can help, Sam. Let me know if there's any way I can help at all." 

 

 

It was so dark, and he could hear the crickets. Crickets and soft tears, that might have been his own. Mulder listened, straining for any sound at all, smelling the salt air and the odor of old sweat. His body ached, bruised pain in his hips and rear fusing and sending long, dull, rolling pain through the rest of his body, to ripple through the cloudy confusion in his head where it crashed into flaring icepick stabs that ran from the back of his skull to right behind his eyes. Little flashes of stomach twisting hurt-light flashed through his eyes as he rolled his head a little, trying to see beyond the explosions that he knew came from inside his head. It was so dark. . . 

"Dad? Dad, are you here? Please let me turn on the light, Dad, please. . . ?" His voice sounded funny in his ears. Hoarse, and low. 

"Fox?" Another voice, not his own. Too deep to be Sam's. He felt his heart squeeze into a cold ball of pain with the certainty that it couldn't be Sam's voice. Mulder felt his face crumple. A light crashed on and he crunched his eyes shut in sudden pain, throbbing echoing from his eyes to the burning point at the back of his head. Opened them to stare at the young man sitting on the bed across from him. 

"I had to kill it, Fox. I didn't even want to catch it." Shaggy bangs hid the boy's face, but his heavy, bulky shoulders curved forward, cupping a pain that had no physical form. Mulder blinked, trying to understand. Slowly let just his eyes trail into the gloom, looking for a man with a high forehead, and brutal hands. For the smell of cigarettes. Found no one. 

It took so long to think. Mulder stared at Jon, and tried to remember where his father was. Shifted in bed, gasped at the bruised, cold throbbing of his wrist and butt. Not so much like the pain of a belting after all, now that he thought about it. Too many places hurt all at once. He didn't know what the needle bruises and torn flesh reminded him of, but he also didn't much feel like remembering. 

Jon looked up at his gasp, and the tear tracks were silvery on his face. Mulder was faintly aware of the scent of fish and water hanging around the younger man. Tried to sit up a little, and bit his lip as cold metal jerked on his wrist. Lay back down. He knew what he was feeling now. 

"What did you kill, Jon?" His tongue was thick in his mouth, but his head was starting to come just a little clearer. He fought for clarity and studied the man sitting across from him. 

Gragg's hair looked wrong, dull and flat. It took a moment to remember why it wasn't blond. Jon wiped his nose on his sleeve with a long motion like a little kid's. "I went fishing. I didn't think I'd catch anything. I n-never fished in my life. I thought. . . but the pole was pulling and then there was this fish. I took it off the hook and I wanted to throw it back, but these people were there. And they'd have seen. I had to put it into this bucket. I bent the hook so it wouldn't catch anything else, but my fish was dead before everyone went away. I didn't want to kill it. . ." 

"Jon. It was just a fish." Mulder felt his face pull, and couldn't decide if he wanted to laugh hysterically or cry. Maybe both. "It's just a fish. . . " bit his lip. 

"But it was God's, and it wasn't in any p-pain, and I didn't need it. Fox, I didn't mean to kill it. . . " 

Mulder clenched his teeth, balled his fists, lying there on his back, staring at the water stained ceiling. Carefully sat up so he wouldn't pull on the shackled wrist. Then he changed his mind, and gave it a fast tug. The pain of the torn skin ate holes in the fog in his head. "You killed half a dozen children. You're planning to kill me. And you are sitting there telling me that you are crying because you killed a fish? He could hear his own voice, low and disbelieving. 

"You don't understand. It was innocent. God made it, and it was innocent, and I killed it when it didn't do anything, and no one hurt it. Fox. . . I helped those kids go to heaven, but a fish just dies. It hasn't got a soul. Daddy used to say the dumb animals just didn't have any souls, and even Eliot and Momma said. . . It isn't gonna go to heaven or anywhere and now it isn't even gonna go swimming around." More tears. Mulder stared at him, felt the sheer breadth of the gap between them, and wanted to cry himself. 

"Jon. . . look at me." He waited for blue eyes, too deep and empty, to look up at him. "Listen, if a fish hasn't got a soul, what makes you think we do?" His head was still so muzzy, it was so hard to think, to try to map out all the old arguments. Hard to even remember Oxford and philosophy in this little cabin, smelling of warm, Louisiana waters and mildew. The ideas throbbed behind his eyes. 

Jon stared at him, and Mulder bit at the inside of his lip, swallowed, stared back, holding his breath to see if any of it reached through that shell of certainty. 

Shut his eyes as he saw Jon's face slowly go gentle, then serene. Felt the sob choke deep in his own chest. 

"You really are so far in the dark, Fox. You don't even know the light that God gave to Man, and Man alone." The young man reached out, put a hand on Mulder's knee. "It's going to be all right. Thank you for trying to help me. . . " 

Mulder flinched away from him, stared. "It's not going to be all right. You are going to fucking gut me just like you did that fish tonight." 

"No. No, you have a soul, Fox. And you've been hurt." 

"By you. . . " he hissed, words forced through clenched teeth, breathing so hard from the effort of sitting there, trying to talk to this man. 

"No." Elijah leaned forward to push the sweat soaked hair off Mulder's forehead, stopped when the agent pulled back. "No. You keep telling me no one's hurt you, and that you're fine, but look at you, Fox. You twitch every time anyone gets near you. You hate your life so much that the very idea that we go on scares you. No wonder you want to believe we end when we die. Try, just for a moment, to trust me. Believe in me." 

"You're going to kill me. I don't see much point in trusting you." 

"I'm going to help you. If you weren't so hurt you'd see that. You'd stop fighting me." 

"Or you'll drug me again?" Jon sat back. Mulder watched him, watched blue eyes studying him. 

"No. . . no, I won't drug you again." The voice was low and steady, soothing. It made the agent's bowels go cold, like ice water. "I want you to have the chance to see it for yourself, Fox. 

I want you to be able to stop being afraid for once in your life. Stop waiting for us to all hit you. I'm not your father, Fox. I don't know how many other people you've found to tear you apart, but I'm not any of them. And I won't let them keep hurting you. You're my friend. . . " He sniffed and laughed, wiped at his nose again. "I can't let them keep hurting you." 

Mulder stared at him taking that in, trying to find the meaning of the words down that small tunnel of clarity that ran through the gray fog. "You won't drug me. . . then what are you going to do?" 

Elijah got up, looked around the little cabin. "I'm going to take us for a ride, Fox. I want to see the sun rise over the water. We're going to go to the sea." 

Fox Mulder stared and shivered as Elijah reached over and unlocked the cuff. When Jon pulled him to his feet, Mulder felt his legs nearly buckle, and a strong arm looped around his back to hold him up. 

"So thin. I can feel your ribs. You're halfway there already, Fox." Elijah laughed softly. A pleasant, rueful sound. 

Mulder felt his lungs starting to draw in fast, panicky breaths as Elijah practically lifted him off his feet, pulling him towards the door. "You aren't taking anything?" 

"I don't need any of this. Neither do you. C'mon, it'll be all right." The arm around his back flexed, pulling him a little tighter against Elijah's side. Mulder tried to dig in the rubber soles of his feet as they crossed the threshold, but the packed dirt crumbled and his feet were barely touching the ground now. 

Two hundred feet away, another cabin hulked in the moonlight, but no lights were on. They were next to the Suburban now. Mulder could see his own moonlit reflection, and Elijah's, in the mirror-dark tinted glass of the windows, until Elijah pulled Mulder around, pushed him back to lean against the car as he unlocked the door, one hand still braced under Fox's arm to hold him steady. Mulder grabbed Jon's wrist, tried to pull, loose. 

His tendons ridged and the salt-laden night air scored the ragged flesh where the cuffs had ripped his skin. Opened his mouth to scream for help. Then Jon pulled loose, and the hand was over his face, clamped over nose and mouth. 

"I'm sorry, Fox. I know it's scary. Just trust me. . . " The hand shifted, pressed tight over his face, and his lungs were starting to implode, trying to draw in air and only pulling on themselves. Mulder grabbed Jon's wrist, dug in his fingers and pushed, feeling screams and sobs and fear all caught in his throat, trapped behind that hand, and the sound of surf in his ears was loud, roaring. His skin tingled and his head hurt horribly where Jon pushed it back against the side of the car. 

He was hanging there, feeling his knees go and his face hurt, his head hurt, couldn't even feel his hands anymore, so hot. . . 

Faintly, miles away, he heard a car door open, and saw light spill over a face shadowed by moonlight. A strong hand slid under his left arm to lift him up, dark edges on his vision bleeding into his sight, and the painful empty screaming ache in his lungs where there should be air and he was thrashing, trying to breathe and nothing was getting to him, the ringing in his head reverberated through the bruise and echoed down his spine. . . 

Air flooded into his mouth and nose, sweet and cool, taking the sob from his chest and rushing through his head like wine. Hands pushed him back into soft support, and held him there as straps went over his lap and chest. A slamming sound that rang through the noise of air in his head, and another, then a hand pushed his head back against a seat rest. Words that jumbled in his scared, confused mind. Mulder heard an engine start, and saw light spear out in front of them. 

Continued in part 34................... 

=========================================================================== 

From: livengoo@tiac.net Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 34/41 NC-17 Date: 23 Feb 1996 04:59:46 GMT 

Oklahoma (Part 34/41) By Amperage and Livengoo Copyright October, 1995 

International Readers: No third season spoilers Rating: NC-17 for language and violence 

Fox Mulder and the X-Files are the creation and intellectual property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting. The FBI is the property of the US Government. Oklahoma and Louisiana and Texas belong to exactly who you think they'd belong to, and everything else belongs to Amperage and Livengoo. 

______________________ 

The Suburban jerked forward, wheels rutching over the packed dirt of the primitive road, wheeling up past the darkened, useless cabins. People were in there, sleeping in comfortable safety, waiting for sunrise, and scores of sunrises after that. Mulder scrabbled blindly for the door handle, sobbing in sweet salt air, tasting dead fish and seaweed and all of it heady and pure. Fingers snatching at the handle and red sparks of pain stabbing at his tendons and joints each time his fingers flexed. 

Spun a glance over his shoulder to see Jon's profile, tranquil, focused on the road that rushed through the figure eight of the headlights. Not watching the agent at all. Mulder slowed, feeling the gray contraction of his stomach as he hooked his fingers under the handle and deliberately, carefully, pulled up. And felt the loose, empty click of a disconnected mechanism. Let his eyes trail down in the dim illumination of the dash to find the bank of switches by Jon's left hand. Found the master switch for the windows and doorlocks and heard the quick sob of understanding before he even felt it leave his throat. 

The Louisiana night blew into the cab through the air vents, warm and wet, full of life. Fox let his head rest against the cool glass of the window he could not lower and smelled an entire world he could not touch. Wrapped his arms tight over his ribs, feeling the ridges of bone that should have been clothed by flesh, laid bare by Oklahoma and Louisiana. Small, wet spots stuck to his sides where his wrists pulled desperately tight around his body, holding onto the need and feeling the air move in and out of his chest, and the too-apparent play of muscle under a delicate, attenuated skin. 

Beside him Elijah sat still and serene, seeing the dark world around them. The faint glow of dawn hung in the rear view mirror but the night was still liquid deep in front of them. Mulder felt his lips thin, tight against his teeth, barely holding against the scream behind his teeth and watching the starry sky and trees glazed by moonlight blur past the smoked glass. Flat land. Coastal land. The tide pulled them south down that tiny last stretch of road to water itself. The only sounds were the humming wheels, the whisper of air through the vents, and the choked breaths Mulder heard forced through his nose. 

He couldn't talk. Pain shot up his spine and belled through his head every time the Suburban vibrated, and his shirt was glued to his ribs under his wrists. The tang of his own blood stained the fecund air that licked their faces. The muscles that banded his thighs and arms were trembling now, shivering in long, uncontrollable ripples that worked up and down through his limbs, burying themselves in chills that ate through his torso and clotted under his breastbone. The words had deserted him, and Jon's faith loomed in the dark to take Mulder as it had taken so many children, as it would take Elijah himself. 

The green numerals on the dashboard screamed out an unequivocal four-twenty in a morning that saw their headlights' lonely skimming across blacktop and shiny, silver and yellow paint. Silent miles hummed under their wheels, with only the sounds of night's denizens calling. Frogs and insects, owls and mice wove a net of life just outside the metal and glass shell that wrapped Fox Mulder and held him in a tiny space where the scent of Elijah's pain and truth overwhelmed any hope or need that Mulder might spill into that thick stillness. 

A flush of gray-peach tainted the pure darkness around them as Jon left the two lane highway, pulling onto a waffled pavement that jolted Fox's head into bitter little sparks. Grasses and sparse bushes riffled in the light air. The nose of the Suburban dropped over a small rise and found the Gulf of Mexico. Catspaws played over silver-gilt water that tossed back the bright image of lights on a flat, wallowing boat at a sturdy dock. The Suburban trundled, almost rolled in neutral, down the slope of the dune. It could have rolled on, out onto the dock, but it didn't. 

Elijah pulled over, and the ratcheted burr of the parking brake was a sudden violation of the quiet. Mulder swallowed, felt his skin crawl when Jon heaved a deep, quiet sigh. 

"I can't trust you, can I, Fox?" The quiet sorrow in his voice drew the older man's eyes around in an alarmed snap of the head. 

"What are you talking about?" Mulder's voice rasped in a suddenly dry mouth. Elijah was studying him with empty, intent eyes. 

"I didn't want to drug you again. I thought you might finally understand it if you could just think a little about it. . . " Jon visibly chewed the inside of one cheek, a bitter frown creasing the smooth skin between his eyebrows. "But you still don't understand. You're still so lost." 

"Jon. . . " the psychologist pulled himself around to face a man with a child's face in the pale light of a peach-gray sky. Tried to find an answer for a question that had not been asked. "I do understand, I know you're hurt. . . " The sudden sharp anger that flickered on the smooth, rounded features stopped the breath in Mulder's throat and clenched his guts in an icy grip. 

"You don't understand. You refuse to understand. The children knew but you. . . " Mulder watched him take a breath, consciously relax. Smile ruefully. "I'm sorry, Fox. You just make it so hard. . . hold your hands out, Fox. Please." Elijah dropped a square, heavy right hand into his pocket, and the federal agent heard a quick rattle of metal. 

"No!" The door handle was in his back, knees drawn up to try to kick almost before Mulder knew he'd moved. Jon watched him with eyes that held more sorrow than anger now, one hand held out where it could shield or catch equally well. 

"Don't do this, Fox. You keep forcing me to hurt you. I know you really don't know any other way to be, but I really hate hurting you. You make it so hard when you don't leave me any choice. . . " 

"Fuck you! I don't make you do any-fucking-thing, Jon!" His face burned and his eyes prickled with anger, teeth suddenly gritted as the adrenaline burned in his blood. Mulder hissed and twisted over onto his hands and knee, driving his leg into a long, extended kick, trying to catch Elijah's face and knowing the strength would fade so soon, too soon. . . 

That square, solid hand wrapped around his ankle and slammed it into the back of the seat past a calm, watchful face. Elijah's other hand darted out to clutch tight around the back of Mulder's neck, shoving his face down into the leather of the seat. A knee in his back kept him there as the cuff closed tight, and Elijah pulled his wrist down. 

The knee vanished, and Mulder shoved himself back off the seat, spinning, panting in fury and pivoting on the arm dragged to the floor by the cuff. Elijah held the other cuff, waiting. Mulder's breathing was harsh and loud in the close confines. He could feel the muscles in his arms, his legs, trembling and shaking. The low, choked growl from his throat drove him when he lunged. 

Elijah was heavier, stronger than Mulder had been before he'd ever set foot in Oklahoma. The agent lashed out wildly, with nothing of training or plan, clawing for blue eyes. The younger man bobbed sideways, took the strike on the side of his head, across one ear. His hand closed tight around Mulder's wrist, pinned it down. 

"Are you done?" His voice was cold, calm. Mulder felt fingers dig into the tendons of his wrist. He tensed his back, his sides. His muscles ached, resisting Elijah's pull. The ache in his head had exploded into a spiked agony that ground whimpers from his gut. He barely noticed the pain in his wrists as Elijah clicked the other cuff and let go, sitting back and stroking his friend's hair, trying to calm him. 

"Fox, Fox, I am so sorry. I didn't want to do this to you, but you don't leave anyone any choice. You didn't leave your other friends any choice, and you don't leave me any." The sound of the parking brake releasing sent broken-glass though Mulder's head as Elijah set the car rolling again, and it bumped down the road and onto the dock. 

Mulder kneeled in the well, face cushioned on the seat and let his fingers tell him he was shackled to the supports of the seat he'd ridden there in. His face felt hot when he buried it against the leather, teeth clenched against the pain and the words that could only show him the anger behind Jon's mask. 

The wheels bumped, vibrated over a studded landing plank to slowly move forward. Turning his face, Mulder could see Jon, concentrating on edging the big vehicle into place. His captor was moving the wheel in delicate little jumps, reaching down to engage the brake between motions. Mulder felt the tremor in his muscles, felt the sickeningly quick release of the tension in his body and the bleak, aching acceptance of defeat. Shut his eyes and let go of the brief moment of hope and strength and wildness until only the colorless void where his emotions had surged wrapped around him. And finally found the calm he knew he'd need. 

"Are you going to leave me like this?" 

Flat eyes glanced down at him. "No. As soon as we're safe on the island I'll let you loose again, but I can't let you take this from me." 

Mulder smiled bitterly. "And if I scream?" 

The answering smile carried little more than regret. "I doubt anyone could hear you outside the car with the windows up. You can't reach the locks or releases. Please don't hurt yourself any more trying to reach them, Fox. I. . . I hate seeing you hurt like this." 

Mulder's smile widened to carry the anger he could not let himself feel. "Then don't hurt me, Jon. Let me go." 

"I'm not the one hurting you, Fox. I never have been." The hand rested on his hair until he shook his head, and Elijah let him throw off the touch. "I need to go pay for the ride. I'll be back when we get near the island. It takes about half an hour." Jon turned the key, turned on the radio. "I like this boat, Fox. Jesus liked boats, too." 

"You, Jon Gragg, are not Jesus." Low, bitter tone. 

Elijah looked out over water studded with dead fish, past the people who held their childrens' hands tethered in tight grips. "I know that, Fox. Believe me. I know that." 

The slam of the door cut off any reply Mulder might have made, and then only the soft music of the radio broke the quiet, as Fox Mulder buried his face in the leather seat beside him and felt the rhythm of the boat take over his stomach and his inner ears. 

 

 

Meyers let strong, black coffee dribble down his throat, savoring the slow burn of hot caffeine. The dark stuff - so much thicker than coffee in D.C., or Oklahoma, or Florida - was sloshing against the lid of his travel mug as he shifted his weight with unconscious grace to meet the swell-rocked deck. The metal and oil tang of a Coast Guard cutter, and the slow, salty odor of the shore spiced the night. Black silk darkness still smothered the shore, and only late stars and the faint glow on the horizon promised that it would ever end. 

"We must be still and still moving Into another intensity For a further union, a deeper communion Through the dark cold and the empty desolation, The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters Of the petrel and the porpoise. 

In my end is my beginning." 

"What the hell's that?" The voice came out of a sudden flare of light, the lambent glow of a cigarette ember lighting in a morning that was still night. 

Meyers tried to see the Coast Guard officer by the faint light of that small flame, and moved upwind. "Eliot. It's T.S. Eliot. I only remember the poem because it's one of the ones Mulder expected Elijah to use." 

"Hnh. Weird case. So what's the poem tell you?" 

"Not nearly enough. Spooky. . . .Mulder thought the poems could tell us why this guy was killing and where he'd show up next. The ones I read had a lot of stuff about water and the Thames, and deserts. So we're out here. One out of three." 

The Coastie was quiet for a long moment, drawing his cigarette to fiery life, then letting it fade to a dull intensity. When he spoke again, his voice was neutral. "You know, you won't be able to see anything out there yet. Not for about an hour. It's a ways yet to dawn." 

"I know. I just. . . Maybe there'd be headlights or something." 

"We can put the spots on. They'll light up a big stretch of shore." 

"No. No, we've got about fifteen boats out to cover more miles of coastline than I really want to think about. There's no guarantee Elijah'd come here, or be on a spot when we lighted it. Our chances of actually finding the bastard that way are up there with the Cubs winning the pennant, but our chances of spooking him off when the local papers report on it are damned high." 

So you just hope you trip over him in broad daylight, before he does your guy?" The suddenly bright coal lit resigned, weathered features. 

"Yeah. Actually, we're hoping someone spots them. Or, if we're really, really lucky, that Mulder gets another call out." 

"Fuck. He could already be dead." Frustration as thick as the smoke drifted over both of them. "I hate pulling dead ones out of the water, Meyers. I hope to Christ this cop of yours is still alive." 

The young man swallowed another bitter mouthful of coffee, smelling warm breezes from the East and dead fish that the farm chemicals killed off the Louisiana shore. Took a deep breath of it and rocked into the swell another moment. Finally forced out the answer that had sat in his throat, hurting there. 

"We think Mulder's still alive. We think Elijah's got another lesson to teach." 

 

 

Averman startled awake with his own snore rattling in his ears. The chair under him creaked and tipped dangerously, and his neck snapped with sudden pain as he tried to get his balance. 

"OW! Ow, shit!" It almost tumbled him backwards before he got back upright. 

"Nice nap?" The Louisiana trooper across from him was smirking. 

"Franklin, your momma ever teach you that everybody likes a little ass, but nobody likes a smart ass?" The AIC ran his hand over stubble on his chin, slowly eased the crick in his neck and scanned the graveyard shift's scattering of, phone handlers. The few, quiet voices were muffled by the indoor/outdoor carpet on the floor. "Rodriguez finally go back to the hotel?" 

"Shit, no. He's sacked out on the Chief's couch. We tried to send him off with a driver and the little spic nearly took our head off." 

"I'll take your head off if you call Dr. Rodriguez a spic again." Averman glared until Franklin gestured an apology. "Any calls come in?" 

"A few." The other man chewed a messy hole in a jelly donut, spilling red stuff on his desk blotter. "There's this one. Early fisherman called it in. Said he saw two guys kind of fighting, one dragged the other out and kind of shoved him into this jeep." Franklin's tongue licked powdered sugar off his lips, but missed the jelly on his chin. "Get this, he said he figured the one guy was drunk. Kind of woozy on his feet. Finally called it in when he got the news and heard about your boy. That's the twelfth drunk-call we've gotten since yesterday. One more for the collection." 

God, his eyes hurt and this man's voice grated in his ears. "Give me that, Franklin. We've already missed them twice because fools assumed just that." The rattle of the paper was loud against the whisper of voices. A book slid to the floor, and Averman saw two startled faces turn from their phones to watch. 

Thomas Stearns Eliot stared up from the floor, looking into whatever empty space he'd watched when photographed so long in the past. The FBI man felt his face twist in distaste, suddenly hating the spitless, restrained image of the poet. Rodriguez must have sent some gofer out to pick up the only tattered copy in a Waldenbooks in some mall. Hope to Christ the place had been air conditioned better than this swamp-sweat hole of an overcrowded state trooper's station. Jack swallowed and shut his eyes, took several deep breaths, and picked the book up, tossing it onto the desk. 

"What the hell is that, anyway?" Franklin was licking white, powder sugar off his fingers. 

"Poetry. Our killer likes poetry." 

The trooper flicked a bit of jelly off one cheek. "Hell with that. It doesn't even rhyme. So why'd the doc send Ron out to get it?" 

He felt so tired. Let his head rest on the heel of one hand as he skimmed the contact report he'd snagged from Franklin, answered absentmindedly. "Our boy's preaching the gospel according to Eliot. That's what Mulder figured. Picked all his killings to go with some poem or other." The words on the page were crabbed, bad handwriting that swam in front of his eyes. Rough, calloused fingers rasped on the soft skin of eyelids. 

"What's the point of preaching something nobody can understand? In my church they'd call that downright stupid. Sounds like your killer's gonna kill the only congregation he's got." 

The pencil in Averman's hands snapped, splinters of yellow-painted Ticonderoga 2 wood showering the paper. Both men started at the sudden noise, looked up at each other, and Franklin's shoulders twitched in an apologetic shrug at the look he saw in the Oklahoman's eyes. "Hunh. Umm. . . guess that's why the doc wanted it, huh?" 

"Very good, Franklin. You might make the next grade yet. Now call those fucking numbers you got in front of you and let's see if we can't just maybe, this once, try to get there on time when this asshole shows up." 

The phone was ringing in Averman's ears. Three, four, five. . . on the seventh ring it was picked up, and a tired voice with the broad, flat vowels of the Northeast answered. 

"Hello?" 

"I'm calling for Stephen Trent. . . " 

"I'm Trent. Who is this?" 

"I'm Jack Averman, with the FBI." He almost smiled at the sudden intake of breath. "I'm sorry to bother you, but I need to follow up on this report you called in and time might be critical. Now, we know you saw two men. Could you just start at the beginning, and tell me exactly what you saw?" 

Flat, New York words told him about two men, one who had fished, young and friendly. The other one had kept to the cabin, supposedly with the flu. Heinekeneitis was Trent's diagnosis, after seeing his buddy help the mystery man out to the Suburban, and hold him upright. Averman felt his back stiffen, swallowed a sense of frustration and guilt. 

"When did you see them leave, Mr. Trent?" 

"About an hour ago, maybe more." The muscles twitched along Jack's jaw at the words. He let his eyes roam to the three people across the room, sitting under the clock. Four-thirty. Two of the troopers, a man and a woman, had phones to their ears. One, the woman, straightened suddenly from her exhausted slump. 

"And you called up at four, Mr. Trent?" Averman's pen left little black marks where he tapped it on the contact report. He wrote at the bottom, noting the probability that this was a genuine contact. Feeling the seething knowledge of a near-miss. "If you don't mind my asking, why did you wait so long to call?" 

The woman across the room was now hunched over her desk, writing fast, shoulders jerking in quick motions. The man next to her was leaning back to watch her. 

"I didn't wait." Trent's voice was impatient over the phone line. "I was looking for the early news, the sports scores, and this guy's picture came up on the screen. Looked a lot like the kid here, except for the hair. . . " 

The woman spun, hanging up. She lunged to her feet, negotiating desks like a broken field runner, waving her contact sheet. Trent was still talking. . . 

"This guy had brown hair. . ." 

The woman was close enough for Averman to read her name tag, "Marie." 

"Sir! Got an ID and the witness is positive. . . " 

Into his own receiver. . . "Thank you, Mr. Trent." Dropping the receiver into the cradle as he reached for the report. Franklin was on his feet now, sensing what was happening. 

"I'll get Rodriguez." 

Marie was tapping lines of description, shifting from foot to foot. 

The AIC could hear Rodriguez' voice coming down the hall, questioning Franklin. Marie was still giving him details. 

"A ferry boat pilot picked up a Suburban this morning and landed it on Monkey Island about twenty minutes ago. He thought he'd seen the driver on television, but couldn't remember where. Get this, he said he figured him for a Dukes of Hazzard actor, then two guys were talking about Mulder and he suddenly pegged the face. He's certain that it's Gragg, just certain." 

"Any sign of Mulder?" Rodriguez' voice was tense and blurry with too little sleep, stretched around a yawn. 

"None, but the jeep had smoked windows and this guy never rolled them down. You always roll 'em down and look when you drive off a boat, but he never did. Sir, I'm betting the pilot was right, and that he's still got Mulder with him." 

Averman nodded, looked to Franklin. "You got a chopper. Get your pilot up here, and call Meyers. Tell him we're on our way, and give him a dock down there where he can pick us up." 

Franklin had the phone in hand. Rodriguez was right behind Averman as he headed out the door, jogging across a landing pad behind the station. A man with headphones dangling from his neck nodded to them. 

"I"ll be flying you out there." 

"Fine. Let's get the fuck off the ground. We've lost too much time already." 

 

 

Mulder panted and curled around the miserable core of sickness in his belly. The seat leather was soft and warm under his cheek, dark where his saliva soaked it. The boat shimmied and another dry, empty heave folded him over his chained wrists, with nothing to bring up but the thick, sour saliva that trailed from his mouth to puddle on the carpet. He sagged, letting his forehead fall against his knees, and moaned as the slithering rock of a boat on water twisted his sense of balance again. 

Fresh blood from his wrists was dying the clear mucus, and he watched it through half-open eyes. The coppery smell and the smooth, queasy shift of everything under and around him cramped him up double again, coughing and choking. Every organ in his body was trying to come up from the feel of it, and the little trickle of bile he still had in him was burning in the the back of his throat and his sinuses. Fox dropped over onto his side on the rough carpet of the floormat and groaned a curse that could have been for all boats, or Jon Gragg, or existence in general. The throb of the ferryboat's engines grated up through tires, and metal, and bone, humming in his skull. Sometimes a choppy little wave disrupted the steady oscillation, slapping his brain in his skull, his organs against his ribs. Going to Jesus was starting to look damned good, so long as he didn't have to get near a boat to do it. 

Oh god, the whole fucking thing was shuddering now. Painful, jagged motions that rattled through Mulder's body as the engine's pitch changed. He'd stopped being human so long ago that he couldn't even come up with a comparison to make sense of how he felt. How humans had ever braved this to colonize America was beyond him. 

The grinding of the engines was shivering in his bones when the door opened. A wave of salt-fresh air stirred the acid taint, and words and the voices of gulls spurred the pounding ache behind Mulder's eyes. Jon's voice, and another. . . 

". . . anks! I'll be sure to try that." 

"You do that now! You sure you was never on television?" 

The laughing question drowned the faint sound Mulder could summon. Everything hurt as he struggled back up onto his knees. 

Jon was still draped over the door, blocking any view into the Suburban. "Not this week, sorry. But you pray hard enough and you'll get a famous one yet!" Jon's laugh, and the stranger's left no hope that a voice scoured to a sliver by screams and sickness could reach anyone. Mulder felt his mouth twist with bitter regret as Jon closed the door and the outside world went away. 

The easy smile evaporated as Elijah's solemn expression fell over his features. The ferry engines went dead, and he reached to twist the ignition key, bring the jeep's engine to purring life. Mulder watched him glance down, saw flat, blue eyes take in what had to be a green-pale, sweat-slick face and the dark stain of spit on the leather. Gragg's straight nose wrinkled at the faint stink of bile. 

"How long have you felt sick, Fox?" His voice was mild. It had been mild, too, when Jon had cuffed him. Mulder swallowed. 

"Since just after we left the dock." Cradled his cheek on the edge of the seat again, watching Jon shift gears. Heard him sigh from deep in his chest. 

"Okay. It'll be all right." The Suburban slowly rolled forward. "We'll take care of it as soon as we find a place to pull over." The words were just jumbled sounds for a few moments, random syllables. Then they jostled each other, came together in sentences that might mean nothing, and then again might mean all too much. The agent braced his hands on the floor by the seat as the Suburban jounced off the loading ramp and onto dry land. 

"What are you talking about, Jon?" 

"I was hoping you'd be all right, Fox. Hoped the nausea would have gone away with you not eating, and all. We'll have you feeling better. . . " 

"What the FUCK are you saying?" He leaned against the seat, trying to keep his head from hitting the dashboard, staring up at Elijah. Gragg watched the road, eyes searching for a convenient place to stop. "Oh fuck! Oh, son of a bitch." Mulder shut his eyes, felt the little color he'd regained drain away again. "You've got the Thorazine with you." 

"Fox, I know you don't. . . " 

"Seasick! I get seasick, Jon. This is not. . ." 

"Seasick?" Elijah's eyes, amused, flicked down and back to the road. "Fox, you grew up on an _island_. I know you don't like the Thorazine, but that's ridiculous." 

"It's true." Frustration knotted his guts and dread put shivers up and down his spine. The Suburban slowed, rolled onto the shoulder of the road. Panicky little breaths rasped in Mulder's throat. 

Jon was reaching over, past Mulder's face, to open the glove compartment. The crinkle-rattle of plastic and the clink of glass answered the flex of muscle in the young man's arm. Mulder instinctively jerked at the cuffs, trying to reach and slam that goddamned compartment shut. Jon sat back in his seat with a small bundle in his hands. 

"Jon, listen to me, please. Look at me. I mean it. Really LOOK! I-get-seasick. I hate boats! Please. . . I won't get sick again. Please don't drug me again." Mulder could smell his own sweat, sour with fear, and cold on the skin of his hands, his sides. Underlying it all was the thin, acrid scent of drugs clinging to him, still in his system. His lips felt dry and it hurt when he bit down on his lower lip, shut his eyes and tried to gather his scattered thoughts. Jon's voice cut off the frayed thread of argument he had tried to gather. 

"Fox. . . " He was sitting there, behind the wheel. Mulder could make out his face in the green dashboard lights, see his outline in the early, faint glow. He was pulling the long shape of the syringe back and forth between his fingers. "Why can't you just trust us? Trust me?" 

Mulder scrunched his eyes shut, balled sweaty fists up to smother the tremor in his hands. Forced his voice past numb, chilled lips. "Please, Jon. Don't do this to me." Shut up as he felt his voice catch. It hurt when he cleared his throat, and his eyes prickled, blurred when he opened them to look back at Jon's concerned, indecisive face. 

"Please. Everyone I meet takes something away from me. All of you steal little pieces of me. . . leave me this much, Jon. Please?" He didn't really know how Gragg could hear him. He barely heard himself, but the younger man's lips thinned with contained sorrow. 

"I know it must look that way to you, Fox. You've got to trust me. I'm taking you where you'll be whole again, and no one will ever hurt you." His hands had gone still, one held the needle, still wrapped in the white paper packaging, the other curled around a small bottle. 

"Leave me this, Jon. Please. Leave me my mind. Leave me my self." 

"I only want for you to be at peace. . . " 

Mulder tucked himself up close to the seat, letting solid floor and seat anchor him. Swallowed hard against receding sickness and rising fear. "I know, Jon. I know you're only trying to help us." Pressed hard against the seat, all wound up into himself, and stole the strength from somewhere to send out in a calm, near-steady voice. "You only wanted to take them away from pain. And me. . . " He had to pause. Took a breath. "But leave me this, so I can try to understand." 

Full daybreak was not so far away, soft gray pushed into almost half the sky. Jon's youthful, rounded features were gentle in the morning, still with determination. A sick, scared man huddled up on the floor of the Suburban, trapped by steel looped around his wrists, and watched Jonathan Elijah Gragg take the counsel of his beliefs.


	3. Oklahoma 3/3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last of it. Amperage and I are both looking forward to the return. Star Wars returned and . . .DID NOT SUCK, and the original Morgan/Morgan/Wong team is on the return of XF so hope springs eternal.

From: livengoo@tiac.net Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 35/41 NC-17 Date: 24 Feb 1996 06:06:21 GMT 

Oklahoma (Part 35/41) By Amperage and Livengoo Copyright October, 1995 

International Readers: No third season spoilers Rating: NC-17 for language and violence 

Fox Mulder and the X-Files are the creation and intellectual property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting. The FBI is the property of the US Government. Oklahoma and Louisiana and Texas belong to exactly who you think they'd belong to, and everything else belongs to Amperage and Livengoo. 

______________ 

The blade wash of the chopper kicked down weeds and sent clouds of dirt and lime scudding away from a clear circle. Samuel Rodriguez kept his head low and squinted in the wind as he dropped to the ground. Averman, behind him, was bent nearly double until both were well clear of the blades and the whirlybird was clawing its way back into the air. 

The ferry was docked again, and a big, taut-bellied man climbed down the loading ramp to meet them. Lights glittered green and red and white up the still-shadowy channel, announcing the Coast Guard launch. Its engine cough grew around them as they listened. 

Frito followed Averman, half running to keep up with the taller man's stride. Half-shattered oyster shells crunched loud in the pre-dawn, drowning the engine from up the channel. White dust from the shells was marking the cuffs of Averman's pants. The AIC had pulled a copy of a photograph from his pocket and was handing it to the ferry pilot as he came to a stop. 

"Mr.Angolier? Thanks for helping out. I'm Jack Averman. . ." 

The badge was open in the other hand, Averman's brusque voice edging out questions and complaints. "Is this the man you saw this morning?" 

The boatman took the shot, studied it. Frito could see at a glance it wasn't the one that had been on the news. Averman was testing for more than a superficial resemblance. The nod that finally answered them was confident. 

"Yeah. This was him . Nice guy, friendly. Bit of a holy-roller though. . ." 

"What do you mean?" Sam looked away from the launch, clear now in the gloom, to see the pilot glance apologetically between them. 

"Well, I believe an' I go to church and all, but I don't talk about Jesus all the time or anything. This boy talked like a real hand waver. Kept saying how it was 'a good day to meet Jesus on the waters.' At first, I figured him for an actor, cause he looked familiar and all. . . " He let the words trail off, turned to watch the white and blue craft pull snug and tidy up to the dock. A dark-haired young man waved from the deck, calling to them. 

Frito took off for it at a run, distantly aware of Averman thanking Anogolier, and hauling after him. Meyers leaned out from the deck, grabbing the doctor's hand to steady him and help him on board. 

"You got a good one?" Meyers glanced from Rodriguez next to him, to Averman, who had turned back towards the chopper. 

Averman nodded and broke into a trot towards his own ride. Sam took a breath and answered the younger man in a voice that carried all the tension he could not afford to let himself feel. 

"Averman'll spot for us from the air, and we'll handle the water. They're on Monkey Island, Meyers. It's the fucking end of the world, and there's no place left to run." 

 

Dirty gray sand blew over the road in serpentine patterns, ending abruptly sometimes where the Gulf had bitten the edges from the smooth ribbon of asphalt. Their headlights still shone on the blacktop, but they were fading with the coming day. 

Mulder slumped against the door. The glass of the window felt cool through his hair. Jon had lowered the windows a few inches and a wet, dawn wind full of seaweed and salt and the foetor of dead fish licked across their faces. The agent's eyes ached as the breeze dried them, but he needed to see everything, needed the mud-flat beaches snared in sea grass, and the water slowly going to burnished pewter under a high, hard sky. 

Jon's reflection was still clear and well-defined in the window next to Mulder's face. Fox's eyes slid shut, flicked open in a quick, almost panicky motion. His hair was in his eyes, but he didn't move the hands lying open and slack in his lap. The fresh abrasions of the cuffs stained the thighs of his pants. Mulder thought about shifting, about wrapping his hands around his wrists to stop the slow, red leak, but it was achingly hard just to curl his fingers, or to draw a full breath into his lungs. So hard. . . he had to work just to keep his eyes open. 

"You can go to sleep, you know. It's all right." 

Mulder thought a moment, pulled his chin around against the dragging numbness of his body. Jon's face was gentle, eyes alert and serene. It sent shivers up Mulder's spine, and drew his voice from deep inside him. The tiny thread of sound that escaped him could have belonged to the wind that ran so freely through the inches allowed it by the glass. 

"No. I don't want to sleep. Not now." 

"I'll wake you, Fox. When the sun rises. . . " 

"It'll be up soon. I'll wait." He pushed himself away from the locked door, into the cradle of his seat. His hands hurt in a far, far away throb. The dashboard clock flashed as the minute changed, catching his eyes. Five-seventeen. Blue and peach washed through the sky, but the burning edge of the sun was still hidden. The island rolled to the left, the brown, silted beaches and water were dull and glossy flat to the right, spilling away from the road. 

Pilings of docks and the tumble of breakwaters studded the water out there. Behind them, on the leeside of the island, the Calcasieu River washed all the castings of the land upstream down, down towards the island, towards the Gulf. Mulder could see it, a texture in the water. Ahead of them, sea grass and gently rolling land ran to the rack line, and flat down to the water. So flat, so brown. It didn't smell like his home, and it didn't look like his home. Mulder felt a sudden wash of misery flood through him, loneliness. It caught his breath and prickled tears into his eyes. 

Words had to meet that feeling, had to carry it out of him. "It's so flat. . . where are the stones? Where are the dunes?" 

"I don't know, Fox.. But listen to it, it still sounds the same. . . " 

"I don't hear bells. I don't hear buoys or foghorns." 

"Gulls. Water. God's wind in the grass and the sound of sand on sand. . . " 

Mulder shut his eyes, face pulled and his forehead hurt with the effort. His lips pursed tight. He took a long, shaky breath. "I want to go home, Jon." 

"Fox. . . " 

"I want to go to the Vineyard. This is so far away. This isn't where I belong. . . " Mulder felt a sudden fear. There was no way out. No way out and he would die here and Averman would forget. Averman wouldn't remember to bury him on the Vineyard. Samantha wouldn't be able to find him. "Please Jon. Not here. Not here." 

". . . I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I can't take you there. They hurt you there, Fox." A soft, sad tone. "Listen to the water, Fox. The gulls. . ." 

Mulder stared out ahead of him, to the east, to the sun, and bit his lip to hold the words still. Ahead of them, in the growing light of the horizon, a dark shadow resolved itself. The agent squinted against wind and light, watching a shadow that quickly grew into a lumpen upright. Dark gave way to faded color and a dark skin of face, arms. The shape of a large, doughy woman turned to stare into the car, into his eyes. Strange, old eyes, and a black face that split into a smile he'd seen once before as she turned to watch them go, waved to them, loose skin of her arm flapping with the motion as he watched the loki dwindle in the side mirror. Swallowed and whispered her name to himself, and raised his eyes to the peach and pink glow of the horizon. He knew he was lost. Didn't need her to tell him. He'd just vanish here, so far away from home, and there'd never be a stone with his name in the seagrass, or a place for him. He'd be lost here in the warm, alien waters, and never find his way home again. 

His body pushed ever so slightly against the shoulder belt as Jon braked and slowed, turning the wheel to take them to the right, towards the Gulf, towards the water. Insects buzzed and flickered in on the gentling breeze as they slowed, and the young man pushed the buttons to raise the windows, locked them as he'd locked the doors. Sound and scent and motion of the outside world came to a sudden stop within the Suburban. They were sealed away again, in the bubble of the car. 

They rolled in neutral to a gentle stop, wheels muffled in the gritty sand of a sea-hardened beach. In front of them, the current raced faster and faster as the tide fled the land, water drawing itself away deep into the warmth of the Gulf, frothy foam marking the currents of the river as it surged out into the salt. The water to the left showed glittery rose. Dark shadows marked the water, studded with lights that would soon be overwhelmed by day's light. 

"Look at it, Fox. So beautiful. . . " 

Mulder wrinkled his nose. "It smells like dead fish." His skin had crawled since he'd seen the woman, Essie, at the side of the road. Fear rushed through him, washing the numb distance away. 

"Dead fish. . . Another crime against God's world and creations. You're right, but it's still beautiful. Look at it." 

Boats rocking out there, in the early haze, and water creamed with froth that crested further and further out, leaving hard-packed beach behind. The sun's first sliver, vibrant rose, hung on the horizon. 

"We aren't going home, are we." It wasn't a question. Mulder knew the answer. 

"Not to the Vineyard, no. . . but we are going home. We are, Fox. Don't be scared. You truly don't need to be scared." 

The words were bitter, but he'd known what he'd hear. "Jon, I don't belong here. I'm not one of your children. . . " 

The smile on the handsome, young face was filled with sorrow and kind understanding. "Don't lie anymore, Fox. Please tell the truth this once. You've been hiding from it for so long. You don't need to hide from it anymore." 

"You and I have different truths, Jon." Mulder's voice was soft, and toneless. "You never did tell me why you chose me. Why you chose any of us. . . " 

Blue eyes left the water for a moment, took in his friend's face. "I remember you. I remember you in church, with the cast on your arm. And how sometimes you couldn't play. I didn't know then, didn't understand that you were hurt. But when I saw you again, I couldn't miss it." 

Mulder stared at him. "Miss what? I can see that you found most of them through Social Services, but not Adeena. Not me. . ." 

"I. . . I don't want to talk about this. It's not important now." 

"It's important to me. Jon, you're going to kill me. I deserve to know why, don't I?" He heard the strain in his own voice, the sudden burr of fear and despair. His hands stung when he braced himself on the edge of the seat. 

Jon's smile had slowly melted away, leaving his face furrowed with old pain. "I've always known, Fox. I knew when I was little. I know now. When we left the water and Daddy brought us to Oklahoma, I would watch the children by the side of the road. Most of them just looked away and went on, but some. . . I knew they knew. Their daddies had hurt them, or someone had hurt them. If they. . . if they'd been fucked, I could smell it. The fear clung to them like the smell of sex. The way they'd look away and not meet your eyes, or wanted to be touched so much. Just like me. . . and like you." 

A ripple of horror washed through Mulder. "No. Jon, my father never touched me. He didn't beat me. . . not until after Samantha disappeared. Jon, he didn't. . . " His eyes felt wide, and the words hurt in his throat. 

Elijah's smile and flat eyes met his protests. "I know. You don't. . .you don't smell like anyone ever fucked you, Fox. I wasn't sure for a bit. Maybe Samantha, I don't know. I don't know. But they hurt you, Fox. You're lying to me, and to yourself, if you deny that. You can lie to me, but you can't lie to God, Fox. Your father hurt you, and I know it. He hurt you, and others hurt you." 

Mulder was shaking his head, tiny, horrified motions. "Nononono. . . you don't understand." 

"No one should ever hit a child, Fox. Their excuses don't matter. They're evil if they hit a child. And there are so many of them, so many. . .Sarah showed me the way. Daddy wouldn't stop hurting her, so she went to Jesus. She just left. It can't be wrong to want to not hurt anymore, Fox. God can't have put us here just to be hurt. My daddy was wrong to hurt me and my brother and sisters. And your daddy was wrong to hurt you." 

"I keep telling you.. . . " words, choked with feelings, that wanted to be tears or screams. 

"You can't lie to me, Fox. I didn't have to smell it on you, though I can. I remember you, and you were hurt so often. Mary told me how you kept getting hurt. And you just let your friends hurt you here, and now. I think you must have been letting people hurt you for years." 

"You're wrong. Wrongwrongwrong! Please. . . " The words were jagged, broken things from deep in his chest, panicky fast as he watched Elijah turn the key and gun the motor alive again. 

"He taught you to let them hurt you, didn't he, Fox? It's the only thing you know how to do. That's why I brought you away. I just can't let you keep finding people to hurt you, over and over. I'm going home, Fox. They won't hurt us anymore. And I'm not going to leave you here all alone with them." A quick motion of Gragg's right hand pushed the Suburban into gear, and Mulder heard the engine revved against the brake, suddenly released with a violent lurch that threw them towards the surf. 

He braced himself on the dashboard as the big engine spun tires and kicked sand in a rooster plume behind the jeep, felt them lurch as they hit the shallow, receding water and drove, engine screaming, out into the tide-bared flats of the Gulf. 

The jolt as they hit water threw Fox forward against his seatbelt and sent spray in an iridescent blur that smeared the rising sun along the windows next to Elijah. Mulder's belt locked, holding him tight as the front wheels skewed on through frothy water and the rear wheels skidded wildly across unstable sand. The weight of the engine shoved the front tires down, letting them bite into surf-packed silt, dragging them through the knee-deep water the receding tide left off of Monkey Island. 

Elijah's ululating howl of joy rang in his ears, drowning the water that clawed at the Suburban's shell. Silt went to gel under their wheels and the big car slewed wildly, throwing Mulder against his door. Beyond Jon's wordless scream of welcome and the rushing clatter of the gravelly water slamming against the car, he could faintly hear a heavy, thudding sound. A bulbous shape was dark against the pallid blue of dawn sky, then the grill hit deeper water and Mulder was too busy to think about it. 

"Shitshitshit, oh shit. . . " His soft litany couldn't have reached over the sounds of the water and the racing of the engine. He was hanging in his shoulderbelt now, fingers clawing at the catch. Metal and plastic wouldn't yield and Mulder felt a nail bend and tear, couldn't look away from the water ahead of them and the water rising up towards the hood. The catch suddenly released, and he lurched forward against the dashboard. The nose of the heavy car was lower than its ass end now, borne down by the Detroit metal under the hood that kept the wheels churning through the mucky bottom while the rear of the thing started to bobble and float. 

Shock of sea under their wheels and the jeep jarred, scraped across a sand bar, with the water lifting and carrying the ass end of it. Arms shaking from so many days of fever and madness dropped Mulder's thin ribs onto the dash board, seatbelt dangling in the air then yanked back into its housing. Mulder glanced up, saw the feverish-bright eyes and the fixed smile on Jon's face, the white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel. He was keening now, what sounded like names, maybe Sarah, maybe Michael. Mulder couldn't say and he really didn't care. He spun to yank at the door, hands catching at grips from an unfamiliar angle. A nail bent back as he ripped at the catch and he hissed. The handle flopped uselessly, inert. 

Water-blur on windows and light everywhere and no clear sight to be had. He couldn't see the horizon or the sun, only the insane wash of light and color around them and his muscles hurt and screamed at him as Mulder twisted, hands braced on his seat, trying to find a clear sight. Window buttons were mockeries, and door locks a lie. All the controls that could free him were guarded on the door by Jon's hand. The whole vehicle lurched and the nose sank more, water gushing up to splash over the hood. A sudden silence washed over them as the engine drew itself up into one last whine, coughed and died. 

In the quiet Mulder could hear Jon slamming his foot on a useless gas pedal. Braced with his hands on the dash board, elbows locked against quivery muscles, the analyst listened to panting that could have been his, or could have been Jon's, and turned his head in the moment's stasis to meet blue eyes and a flushed face. 

And Jon smiled. Wide and wild and crazy. White teeth and blue eyes and blue of sky and brown of water blurred across the glass behind him as the Suburban rocked and tilted further towards the nose, and a rushing sound yanked Mulder's eyes away and down to where water forced its way up by his feet, cold and gray. He'd thought he was spent, past being terrified or having the strength to care any more. 

He was wrong. 

 

Prop wash sent clouds of mist scudding to catch light and confuse the eye. It threw the double rooster tail of water away and whipped the dark surface of silt-stained riverine currents into a froth. And through all that Averman could see the carapace of the Suburban, skidding away from land and safety and sanity and into the rushing channel dug by thousands upon thousands of tides that shaped the coastal lands before men ever worked their way here, before men every spilled dirt and filth and left trails of death in their wake. 

Shiny black, under water and light, and suddenly it tipped down and away as the hood dove under that scummed surface, trying to find bottom, and the rear bobbed with the air it held, rocking and rolling in the growing violence of the tidal waves. Offshore, the launches hovered, kept at bay by sand bars and treacherous bottom. 

"We have them in sight, but cannot approach until they get into deeper water. We are preparing divers. . ." The Coastie's voice was curt and professional. Behind him Averman could hear a steady thread of Spanish curses. 

"How deep is it there?" 

"Ten feet maybe. Variable. We need a draft of at least fifteen. The current'll be carrying them this way, but they won't float for long." 

"Will they get out by you before they go under?" 

". . . I can't answer that. I'm not sure it matters." 

It had tilted now. Nose down and he could see through the tinted back windows, make out figures in there, moving. No details, but movement. The headphones made his jaw ache where they gripped, and the light kept flashing into eyes widened by staring into dark places. Averman glanced at the pilot next to him. The man's face was set, watching the car below with the little attention that didn't go to keeping the aircraft in a tight circle. 

Watched the shadow of the chopper skitter across the water down below, shading the dark wedge of metal and glass. 

"Do what you can. Just do what you can." 

 

Salt spray and the smell of the rotting coast was on Sam Rodriguez' lips. And words. . . 

"Lady, whose shrine stands on the promontory, Pray for all those who are in ships, those Whose business has to do with fish, and Those concerned with every lawful traffic And those who conduct them. 

Repeat a prayer also on behalf of Women who have seen their sons or husbands Setting forth, and not returning: Figlia del tuo figlio, Queen of Heaven." 

Behind him the rattle of tanks and the squeak of rubber broke the slap of sea against man's brittle shell. Shouts and the laughter of gulls all merging, and from Monkey Island the sound of morning. The sound of a bell. 

"Also pray for those who were in ships and Ended their voyage on the sand, in the sea's lips Or in the dark throat which will not reject them Or wherever cannot reach them the sound of the sea bell's Perpetual angelus." 

Eliot's words hung on the air between him and Meyers. Sam let the binoculars drop on their strap, not feeling the heavy casing as it thumped against his chest. He didn't need the lenses now. The glossy black roof wallowed out there on the water, where it didn't belong. Hanging in the air over it, the big chopper shimmied and wheeled, impressive and useless. 

"Holy shit. . ." Meyers' whisper cut through the clatter and babble. Divers were yanking their way into flippers and tanks, and Zinsmeier and Averman's voices bounced through the cabin. Meaningless sounds. The black shape rocked wildly as the tide-driven current slapped it sideways. Scylla's hungry tongue. 

Sam's ears were ringing, but he could hear that engine race as the jeep still tried to reach for bottom, drag itself further out. The chopper's drumming scream sang counterpoint as it veered off and clawed its way up past where its downdraft tore the spray into an iridescent mist around them. Then the chopper and the boats were all that was left. The Suburban's engine coughed and died as it dragged itself into the current and its wheels lost their grip. 

He couldn't see the hood anymore. Even with the binoculars it was just dirty water shimmering and brown flecked foam, and glass with blurred figures. It yawed drunkenly, canting its grill down towards the sand. The river drew it on, deep into the heart of the Gulf. 

 

"There are flood and drouth Over the eyes and in the mouth, Dead water and dead sand Contending for the upper hand. The parched eviscerate soil Grapes at the vanity of toil Laughs without mirth. This is the death of earth." 

The jeep rocked and tossed them both as the waves and current slapped it deeper into the Gulf. Leather was soft and yielding under Mulder's fingers when he yanked his thin body over the back of the seat, sobbing with the sudden fear that he'd be too slow, too weak. In the corner of his eye Jon was twisting loose of his seatbelt and reaching and his fingers scraped a bruising trail down the agent's right leg then Mulder was clear and free and scrambling up the tilted floor of the jeep towards light and air and. . . 

Glass. Glass, another window. Another lock. Metal dug into the fingers locked around the handle that couldn't open the rear door of the Suburban. Elijah's fingers bit into his leg, then let go. 

"Fox, it'll be all right, let go. . . " 

"Fuck you! Let me the hell out of here!" 

"Fox!" 

"Nooo! No, you don't call me that and you don't take me through your fucking nightmares anymore! Leave me alone. . . !" The words scraped their way free of this throat, flat in the thick air shoved to the back of the jeep by the water. He could see it when he glanced down, mica-sparkle brown around the windows, cloudy and turbulent inside the car where it surged towards the dashboard and lapped at the fronts of the seats. 

"Damn it, Fox. . . " The red flush was bruise dark as Jon looked up at him. Mulder yanked his eyes away, looking up at sky that was being slapped out of his range by the water, the current. He could feel the metal cage jarring as the waves slammed it and tossed it further out into the Gulf. The air was thick and hard to breathe and made his ears pop. 

"Anh. . .anh. . .aanh" His breathing and his heart pounded in time with the dull thuds his hand made against the glass. Red smears marked the blue of sky. When he could see it, when waves didn't take it away and send his glass and metal trap bouncing like a toy. Hot trails rolled back down his arm and dripped from his elbow and he could feel the burn in his hands and his ribs and his throat and it didn't matter, none of it mattered, like the hands that were clawing up his sides now, trying to pull him down to the water and the dark and the mud and sand below. 

And a hand reached his shoulder. It was so hard to keep hold of the door, keep his sneakered feet anchored against the carpet and the front seats, so hard to sprawl against gravity's pull and the call of water beneath him. . . 

And Jon's voice. "Don't worry. I'm so sorry. I should have known you couldn't believe. . ." And Jon's hand around his throat, under his chin, until Mulder let go and spun and tried to get his arms up. Elijah was off balance and rolled as the car wallowed and the light was swallowed up. In the dim gloom, with sounds so hollow in pressure-painful ears, seeing the bubbles find the surface where he couldn't follow, Mulder rolled away from Jon, seeing a look of pity and anger and sorrow. 

And hearing the words. . . "We can't go back, Fox. Can I look again at the day and its common things, and see them all smeared with blood, through a curtain of falling blood? I can't. You can't. You'll get there first, but I won't let you stay scared, Fox. It's going to be all right." And Elijah crouched and there was no place to hide. 

Continued in part 36........................ 

=========================================================================== 

From: livengoo@tiac.net Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 36/41 NC-17 Date: 25 Feb 1996 07:18:00 GMT 

Oklahoma (Part 36/41) By Amperage and Livengoo Copyright October, 1995 

International Readers: No third season spoilers Rating: NC-17 for language and violence 

Fox Mulder and the X-Files are the creation and intellectual property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting. The FBI is the property of the US Government. Oklahoma and Louisiana and Texas belong to exactly who you think they'd belong to, and everything else belongs to Amperage and Livengoo. 

___________________ 

"And the Spirit moved upon the face of the water. . .As the air of temperate seas is pierced by the still dead breath of the Arctic Current; And they came to an end, a dead end stirred with a flicker of life. . . 

In the restless wind-whipped sand, or the hills where the wind will not let the snow rest. Waste and void. Waste and void. And darkness on the face of the deep." 

Meyers' spine chilled as Rodriguez' words echoed hollowly through the sunlit clatter. The divers were running last-minute checks, one eye on their equipment and one on the slap-ripple of water where the last glimmer of metal shone in troughs. Farrigut, in yellow neoprene and striped tanks, watched beside them. 

"We'll be there soon. We have to get close enough not to get lost. We'll get them. . . " 

"It's taking too fucking long. . . " Meyers' stomach was a cold, knotted thing in his gut, and his hands clenched and released the sun-bleached wood of the coping. Water slapped their hull, met itself over the spot where there wasn't any jeep and no men could be seen anymore. When he turned his head, forced his chin around, Rodriguez' brown eyes were wide and fixed, and his lips moved with prayer and poetry. 

He spun, glared at Farrigut in his rubber and weights. "You're in your tanks, dive for God's sake!" 

Hard, steady eyes looked up into his, and a wide mouth tightened. "Listen to me, kid. That water's like diving in liquid shit. It's thick and dark and brown and it's hot on top but you go five feet down and it's cold as hell. A man can get turned upside down and lost before he knows it in this shit. We don't dive in it unless we got to, and if we got to then we don't dive until we know where we're going and we can do it right." 

"They're sinking. They're trapped and they're under and that fucking maniac. . . " 

"Can just wait or he'll have even more deaths to his name." 

Meyers turned his back on them, ignored the sounds and counted the seconds and there were too many. Too many. And he couldn't let it happen. Soft words to himself. "I know the water, I've dived. Hell, I grew up in the water. . .They're not going to make it. We're not going to make it." Sam's eyes were on his face now. He swallowed and looked back. 

"I shouldn't have left him alone. He told us what would happen." Sam stared back, words caught in that moment before they could drop and make sense. 

"You didn't know. . ." 

"He told us, Sam. And we didn't listen." 

He barely knew it but one foot was suddenly bare, and he was yanking the shoe off the other. Ignoring the shouts and the words and the water was warm and stinking-thick around him as he dropped over the side, then cold around his feet. 

He could taste it in his mouth when he swam. Taste of a smell of chemicals and mud and land and death. Seaweed and jellyfish caught and stung at his fingers, and the water hurt his eyes. Words meant nothing more than sound behind him. All the world was light and water and salt and the sound of his own breath in his ears as he swam. And the tide was rushing out and the waves slammed around him, four and five feet over his head. 

And then his hand hit something hard and it hurt, and his foot kicked metal. Meyers pulled up to tread water, seeing waves and snatching breaths as they pounded over him until he could feel the air in his lungs and his veins and knew it was time. And he dove. 

 

"And the lost heart stiffens and rejoices In the lost lilac and the lost sea voices And the weak spirit quickens to rebel. . . " 

"No!" 

"Don't fight me. . . " Jon's hand was tight around his wrist and he could feel the muscles trembling and the thinness of skin and flesh over bone. Mulder pulled his knees up and kicked, and Jon's pain-doubled gasp bought him a moment. 

The blond was sprawled across the backs of the seats, gagging, hands wrapped around his groin. Mulder scrambled over him, felt his body clear the backs of seats and drop into water. The cold shock startled a gasp from him and a hiss of pain as salt bit into his wounds. 

He couldn't see the door locks. Tingling and numb fingertips pushed at anything that would move and Mulder pulled himself tight and small under the shelter of the steering wheel. Water slapped at his chin and stung in his eyes when the jeep shifted. He coughed, swallowing a mouthful, tasting death and chemicals, gas and oil and salt. Elijah's hands blurred pale in the gloom, trying to reach him, and he cringed lower behind the wheel watching the man wedged between the bucket seats. 

"I won't go back, Fox. You won't stop me." Fury and pain roughened the words. 

Mulder spat gray-brown water. "You want me to just lie down and die like those kids you butchered? Go to hell, Jon!" 

"You're wrecking everything. I won't let you ruin this for me." There, he'd heard it. He knew he had. A sudden click chased the echo of Jon's words and Fox felt the sudden, terrible surge of hope. He wanted to sob with frustration. His arms were so heavy, and his legs trembled with cold and weakness where they were tangled in the pedals. It took so much. He lunged suddenly, exploding from under the wheel to wrap his arms around the back of the driver's seat. Tried to force his body over it where the seat hung crazily, facing down to the floor of the Gulf. 

From the corner of his eye he saw Jon's face, a hand reaching for him. Shut his eyes and pulled with all the strength he had left until he was half over, legs hanging. So hard to breathe the thick air, and he could see the trail of bubbles chasing each other towards the light. The headrest dug under his ribs and he gagged and stared, as a blur caught his eyes, and he saw a face, puff-cheeked, at a window. 

Then a hand was balled into the cloth between his shoulder blades, and it pulled with a force that slammed his head against the door post and sent nausea-stained stars behind his eyes. A hand locked itself around his throat forcing that kicked-in-the-balls sick pain through his larynx and squeezing, squeezing the light and the color and the air out of his world until he couldn't feel the hands he was clawing at, and couldn't move and couldn't. . . couldn't. . . 

The sound was something he felt rather than heard. Even the red roar in his ears couldn't hide it. A single hammer blow that pounded the Suburban and ripped Elijah's hand off Mulder's throat. 

A desperate breath hit the agent's lungs, doubled him in a painful cough and deep confusion. Mulder forced open his eyes even as he sucked down another heavy lungful of air. The pounding was softer, odd, and Elijah had twisted to see. . . 

The pale blur of a face crazily puffed by air, black hair that floated and a hand pounding at a shatterstar bullet hole in the rear window where water helped force the glass to. . . 

"Oh SHIT!" Mulder snatched a last gasp of air as the glass folded in, creased along the bullet's damage and disintegrated into tiny chunks. Water helped carry Meyers into the small space where a pocket of air had become a tingling wash of fleeing bubbles. The Gulf's slap struck the men in the jeep, pinned Elijah to the wheel and threw Mulder into the glass of the door. Desperate hands had Fox's shoulders and were pulling him away. 

Mulder's eyes hurt with the water as they opened wide, saw black hair floating free and a round, young face by his. Then hands forced him towards a jagged, little gap where glass had been, and sent him out to follow the last air from the car racing up towards the surface and the light. 

He kicked, felt Meyers' hands shove at his legs. The metal trim was slick under his fingers as he pulled his aching body clear. In the gloom he could faintly see Meyers looking up, see Jon still thrashing in the front of the cab. Meyers suddenly jerked as a hand flailed, caught at him, but the water was pounding against the blood in Mulder's head, hurting his ears and forehead with stinging needles of pressure and the air in his lungs snatched him back, buoyed him up, towards the air and light that had to still be there, somewhere. 

He didn't look behind him, only locked his teeth and lips tight, and held onto the air in his lungs with all the will and fear and need to live he could find. 

And rose, slowly and steadily as Jonathan Elijah Gragg found what he had sought. 

"In a drifting boat with a slow leakage, The silent listening to the undeniable Clamour of the bell of the last annunciation." 

 

"Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the Shadow 

For Thine is the Kingdom 

Averman stared at dirty, empty water. He could see men in scuba gear, but they were casting around, unsure of where to look. The AIC could barely see more from his perspective. The jeep had gone under to be lost in the murk almost immediately. And the faint smudge of Meyers' shirt was long-gone. 

When the paleness of skin and cloth suddenly burst through into air, he mistook it for foam for an instant. Only an instant. Then he was cursing and the chopper was circling lower, trying to get a clear sight of the man. And trying, like a buzzard, to mark what was there to be found. 

"Did he get your boy? Does he have anyone else with him?" The pilot's voice was taut with nerves. 

"I can't tell. I can't keep a clean sight on him. . . " The AIC held the glasses so tight they hurt his face, trying to follow the man in the water. And waves kept driving him under, carrying him away. And he couldn't see. . . 

"Shit. We're shoving the poor bastard under. . . " A sure hand pulled back on the stick and the bird lifted away from the serrated water. Averman looked down and breathed a curse, but under his breath he mouthed prayers. A prayer for the living and a prayer for the dead. 

And down below, so far away, he could see a white launch and a small, brown man. And knew that Rodriguez was waiting to say goodbye to a friend. 

 

 

The downdraft was a slap in his face, driving spray across the surface before the whirling blades carried the chopper up. Mulder barely noticed; another squat, foam-toothed wave loomed up to crush him under its weight. 

The analyst fought, forced his legs to kick, flailing with both hands. Heavy denim and sneakers pulled him down and the Gulf hit him in the face again. His mouth and nose were full of water and the cough doubled his body, carrying him under. So hard to hold onto himself against the sluggish, trembling ache. His lungs screamed to draw freely. Too hard. . . he felt the sudden water in his nose as his lungs drew, and terror jolted through him, heady and real. 

It got Mulder back up to the surface, gasping and flailing. A capricious wave caught and lifted him, showing him boats circling so close. As close as the sky and the sun. He couldn't feel his hands or feet. Not even the sting of salt in cuts. The bruised ache of exhaustion swept aside anything so trivial. Water slapped hard against his face again, pushing him under. Fog was eating up the world now, red and black and hurting him as it took the edges and kept growing. 

He threw his head back, reaching for air, but met only water and there wasn't anything left. All going away and the whirlpool had him. Scylla and Charybdis, sang a hollow voice in his mind, and it went round and round and he was going under now and he felt something wrap around him but it was just the mermaids singing and singing, and he couldn't hear anymore. No voices would wake him and all that was left was. . . 

The song and the dark. 

 

Rodriguez felt the launch shudder as the engines reversed to pull it to a stop. Orange dye spread over the blue-brown water, but here it was hard and pure and small, billowing out from three men in the water. Plastic covered two faces, but the third drew his eyes until he forced them away, and let himself slip down. He didn't want to see. He was afraid to know. 

There were shouts and the clamor of rescue was acid in his ears. The men up above had spotted someone. Coasties milled around, doing things he didn't try to follow. 

They didn't waste time with winches and harnesses, using muscle to simply drag the slack body of a man up over the side. Sam could hear his limbs thud and splash to the deck, and slowly turned to stare at the gray face. He couldn't feel the blood drain from his own face, or the warm deck under his butt. Just stared as Dr. Truong and one of the sailors went to frantic work to get the water out of Fox Mulder's lungs, to find a pulse and force the life back into the body they'd found. 

He waited, looked up. They were looking, but hadn't shouted, weren't gathered. There wasn't another face. The sea had yielded one body, and only one and might yet take him back. Rodriguez shut his eyes and saw words on a page. When he opened his eyes it was still Mulder's thin frame splayed on the deck, under Truong's hands. Face down, they pushed the water out of him. What looked like gallons spread clear and shining across the painted deck, spilling from gray lips and nostrils. 

It was taking so long. Some part of him knew it when they started CPR, and counted their breaths with them. He wanted to walk across the deck, take up the count with them, help pull a life away from the Gulf's greedy water. And he couldn't. Couldn't move and was afraid to feel or hope or try to reach for this life. Elijah and the Gulf had taken Marion. Truong could fight for a dead man, he didn't know any better. Sam knew. He'd said his prayers for the dead. 

Rodriguez watched a broad back posting up and down. His mind found the memory of the horses at home, of his friend posting the way Jenni told him. . . 

In memory a dry voice yelled across a paddock. "The sadist who invented this shit didn't get enough sex! I won't be able to screw for a week!" Saw Francis, stiff legged and laughing, moving up and down so much like this. The technician wasn't laughing. 

Truong's voice was urgent and impossible. "Got a pulse. C'mon, you bastard, breathe. . . " His words were loud in a waiting silence. Sam swallowed, tried to force himself over there. 

And couldn't. He couldn't stand to watch Fox Mulder die again in front of him. 

His eyes were closed, trying to shut out fear and sorrow and hope. He didn't want to hear Truong's words, and take hold, and finally let go again. 

"A curse is slow in coming. . . It cannot be diverted An attempt to divert it Only implicates others At the day of consummation. . . What ambush lies beyond the heather. . . And behind the smiling moon? And what is being done to us? And what are we, and what are we doing? . . . We have suffered far more than a personal loss - We have lost our way in the dark." 

Words came back from a battered page in the dead of night. Words that had guided Elijah, who had led them here. Sam squeezed his eyes shut and let the words wash away hope and fear and leave him where he'd been led. Then Marion started coughing, started breathing. Chills were running up and down Sam's spine and his mind was trying to understand something, but the shapes and words didn't seem to fit any of the thoughts in his head. 

Truong was shouting and the words that should have meant so much to him faded and were noise in the sunlight. Marion had been wrapped in blankets, and the launch slammed across the water, driven by its big motors. Sam could hear the sirens echoing over water. The familiar howls of ambulances and police cars. Someone put a hand on a shoulder he knew was his and shook him a little. 

"Doctor? Doctor Rodriguez?" It talked more, but he let the words go by. Remembered miracles. Jonah in the deep. Marion had been dead. He'd known it. He'd waited to say goodbye. 

The Blessed Virgin had said that Sam would take his friend to the door. . .and he'd known that he had. And another had taken him through. But Meyers had gone through the door with Elijah. He'd known. . . miracles just didn't happen. 

Another voice was talking to him. Sam felt words somewhere in his throat, but they didn't make sense and he didn't bother to say them. The boat wasn't bouncing anymore, not slamming him as it hit water, and he knew this voice. 

"Christ, Rodriguez. What the fuck happened?" He looked up at Averman, vaguely registered a long, long pause. Felt his neck lower his chin as the AIC crouched down to look into his eyes. 

"Rodriguez? Sam?" 

"Where's Meyers?" 

". . . I don't know. They're still looking." 

Sam giggled. He felt it welling up and he didn't want it but he couldn't stop it. It tickled his nose and hurt his head and made the tears roll down his face. His nose was stuffy. 

"They won't find him. He's gone, Jack. That's what it takes to save the damned. Blood, Jack. It takes blood." 

"Sam. . . " 

"He knew, Jack. Elijah knew. Marion knew. 

'This way the pilgrimage Of expiation Round and round the circle Completing the charm So the knot be unknotted The cross be uncrossed The crooked be made straight And the curse be ended.'" 

Averman's voice was hoarse, thin. "Sam, listen to yourself. It's over now, son. It's over, let it go. . . " He turned and yelled to someone else, and Sam giggled again. Giggled as the older man ordered someone to get another ambulance. 

"Listen, Jack. He knew. 

'. . . the curse be ended By intercession By pilgrimage By those who depart In several directions For their own redemption And that of the departed.'" 

Averman's eyes were shut tight. Tears streaked his drawn face as he looked away from Samuel Rodriguez' wide eyes and hollow voice, and words he should never have learned. Remembered a dog-eared page in a little book with Eliot's lost, sad face on the cover. And he cursed the memory of a marked page and turned back to look into Sam's face. And gave the final benediction of Sam's profane prayer. 

"May they rest in peace." 

Continued in part 37.................... 

=========================================================================== 

From: livengoo@tiac.net Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 37/41 NC-17 Date: 26 Feb 1996 05:59:53 GMT 

Oklahoma (Part 37/41) By Amperage and Livengoo Copyright October, 1995 

International Readers: No third season spoilers Rating: NC-17 for language and violence 

Fox Mulder and the X-Files are the creation and intellectual property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting. The FBI is the property of the US Government. Oklahoma and Louisiana and Texas belong to exactly who you think they'd belong to, and everything else belongs to Amperage and Livengoo. 

__________________ 

It was quiet in the country. At night, there were the security lights but nothing else. No towns close by to cast halos of light onto the horizon. Just the sweet blackness of night and the pure radiation of stars burning their light down onto a world filled with crickets and innocuous night creatures. 

He'd been here a day now. A whole day. Woken late at night on Thursday in Saint Pat's in Lake Charles. Spent Friday morning getting the truth out of everyone. Meyers was dead, Sam was on tranqs, flying to California to be in the arms of his family. Meyers was dead and Sam was having a nervous breakdown. Meyers was dead and Sam was going crazy too. Meyers was dead and Sam. . . Mulder tried to break the incessant drumming of those two thoughts, by staring at the television set. PBS. Something about animals. He couldn't follow the announcer's voice, and it didn't feel real enough for him to care. He'd picked up. Averman had argued and argued and there'd been a psychologist and then a psychiatrist, but in the end they'd had to let him go. Averman had stayed right there, like a quiet shadow. Upgraded the flight back to DC to first class. Ridden beside him, quiet, not trying to talk to him. Averman had snatched the bag of peanuts and the coke. Sprite instead. No peanuts. And the airport. National Airport. In retrospect, it had been fucking embarrassing. Averman steering him, one arm on his elbow, clutching. And then the Senator and the two hulking men who'd taken up position like Mulder was going to cut and run. 

Mulder wanted to get up from his place on the couch. Wanted to, but his body had settled in. It was fucking tired and now he had a place on the couch. When he moved it was like his joints creaked. His skin was feather-sensitive. And he hurt everywhere. His eyes felt like he'd been crying for hours--purified of all their tears. 

Fucking kidnapped. There had been no choice, just two men and one of them had had Valium if Mulder had tried to cut and run. Averman was an Agent, Matheson was a senior senator and Mack was a psychiatric RN. If he'd caused a scene they would have looked like fucking heros and he'd probably still be here. Here or in that damn hospital at Georgetown. 

He could still hear Matheson's voice in his ears, after they'd picked up all his luggage, deposited him into the fucking Bentley. "You have a choice, Fox. You can go with me and get better. We've gotten you as much leave time as you need. Or you can fight it and I've got a friend at Georgetown who's talking with Dr. Guiterriez in Oklahoma. They've guaranteed a bed on their secure psychiatric ward for you. Please, Fox. Come to the house in Virginia." 

The second man had been Matheson's driver. Averman had nodded, relieved when Mulder mumbled something. Gotten out, heading back to the taskforce and a world that wasn't Mulder's anymore. 

So he was here. Trying not to cry. Watching the television with Mack. And Ingrid. Ingrid was the housekeeper. It was a very nice house. A horsebarn in back. Ten miles from the closest town. Mulder's room and Mack's room had a bathroom between them. The doors had had latches to lock but someone had taken them off. Recently. Mulder had seen the latches lying on the kitchen table when he came in. His bedroom had expensive, antique furniture and a thick pile carpeting and a fireplace. But it was uncluttered, without knickknacks, and the bedcovers, plain functional things, were out of place in the midst of luxury. The wall outlets had been replaced with blank plates, except for the one under the bed, but his alarm clock and his lamp were plugged into that and you would have to move the heavy, carved, oaken bed to get at that outlet. The clothes he'd left in DC, some of them had been in the room when he'd gotten there. 

Matheson had given the rest of his luggage to Ingrid to sort through. He'd sat Mulder down, on this very couch, in the big back den, and talked clearly to him. It all seemed like a thick haze. A translucent, pearlescent haze that kept anything from touching him. Wrapped him in cotton wool. 

"Fox. I'm going to be able to keep everything safe for you. If that's what you want. I know you're having a hard time thinking right now. But I have to know." Matheson had been sitting on the coffee table. "You don't want to take psychiatric disability, do you?" 

"No." He'd shaken his head, wrapped his arms around his chest. 

"Do you want to stay in VICAP?" 

"Yes." 

"Now, I want you to think long and hard about this. You're not in the hospital, and I, personally, think you can come back from this. But I have to know. I'm going to be pulling some strings and calling in some favors to keep this quiet. Are you going to be able to get better? Not just partially better. All the way?" 

Mulder had started to say something about how he wasn't sick and that there wasn't anything wrong with him. And then he'd remembered when Averman told him Meyers was dead. He remembered when he'd finally gotten word that Sam wouldn't come see him because Sam was having problems of his own. He remembered banging his hand against a bedroom wall. He remembered Averman's hands on his shoulders as he was held against a hotel bed and a needle stung his butt and made the world recede. "I want to get better," he'd said simply. It was the best he could do. "I'm going to try." Soft, simple words that really didn't sound anything like him. Quiet words. 

It had been enough for Matheson. 

Supper had been a protein drink and oatmeal. Not bad. Not the oatmeal anyway. Mack had helped him eat, helped him form his fingers around the spoon. He'd hated that. Needing help. God, he hated it all. He was hungry and he wanted food and they gave him oatmeal. He hated this, being dependent. Being childlike. It irked and niggled at him. 

There were other pictures on the television set. They moved too fast for him. And Mack was speaking. 

Mulder shook his head and focused on Mack's lips. Mack probably worked his way through college as a bouncer. "First a bath and then bed," Mack was saying patiently. "Come on." 

"I'm not tired," Mulder replied, mostly for form's sake. His throat hurt, was raw. He could only whisper. 

Mack smiled patiently. "Come on. Do you need help walking?" 

"I don't need your help," Mulder replied, indignant. "I don't need any one's fucking help." 

"Come on." 

There wasn't much choice. 

Someone had laid his old ratty shorts and a t-shirt out on the bed for him. He wanted to take the clothes and sling them across the room. He could find his own fucking clothes. Damn it. Damn it. 

He walked into the bathroom; Mack was there. Sitting on the toilet. 

"I'm not taking a shower with you here," Mulder said, hands on his hips, exasperated. 

"Fine. Then I'll run you some bath water." 

"I'll take my shower by myself," Mulder replied. Take a quick shower and then fall into bed. Try to forget that the room was politely childproofed. 

"Fox, I can't let you take a shower by yourself. If you want to take a shower I'm going to stay here. If you want to take a bath, I'll go away." 

"I want to take a shower, without you here." 

"You're not strong enough. If you fall, you could hit your head. It's not safe." Mack's voice was patient. "You have two choices. But showering by yourself isn't one of them." 

"NO," Mulder replied. "I'm going to take a shower without you hovering over me." 

"That's not an option. In a few days, when you're stronger, it may be. But tonight it's not an option," the big, blonde man said easily. 

"No." It was irrational. He knew he would lose. But right at that moment, Fox Mulder didn't give a fucking damn in hell. Just didn't fucking care. He wanted to take a shower by himself. Didn't want someone outside the curtain waiting to catch him. Didn't want to squat in bathwater and feel it fill with dirt and crud. He wanted to fucking take a shower by himself. 

Mack took a deep breath. "Fox, let's get you undressed and into the tub." 

"You're not touching me!" He felt is voice grow shrill. 

"I'd let you do it if it were safe. But it's not safe. Not tonight. Come on. Why don't we just put you to bed now? We'll discuss it again in the morning, when you're feeling better." 

Mulder stared at the nurse. "NO. NO. Will my options be any different?" 

Mack didn't answer. "Fox, come on. This isn't a big deal. Calm down." 

And suddenly it didn't really matter anymore. He felt his control slipping away, replaced with a sudden irrational anger that boiled from some deep fire inside him, some fire he didn't know existed. It burned and he couldn't stop it, couldn't stop anything that happened. He was so pissing mad. Treated like a child and there were blank plates on the outlets and the locks were missing and he couldn't even fucking take a shower alone and he hated standing there, every fucking bone on his face in sharp detail and his eyes were smudged and ringed and looked very nearly like he had two black eyes and he'd lost twenty pounds and his hands and his wrists were bandaged and screaming at him and here was Mack who didn't understand any of it, trying to fucking tell him, fucking tell *him* what to do. Mulder lashed out. Crying. "Stop it. STOP TELLING ME WHAT TO DO." 

He knew he had to hit something. He knew he had to have the pain coursing through his body, had to cause some sort of pain somewhere or he wasn't sure what the anger would do. Wasn't sure what would happen. He just couldn't stand the anger and the rage and it was all churning and. . . 

Mack's arms were strong around him. His back was pressed against Mack's chest and Mack had Mulder's arms crossed, had Mulder's wrists in his big, beefy hands. Mulder struggled. Fucking didn't care. Fucking just hoped that he hurt something, kicking and fighting and screaming at the top of his lungs. Didn't matter anymore. Fucking didn't fucking care. 

He spent his rage kicking and screaming and trying to get loose, trying to get away, trying to hurt Mack. Seeing himself in the mirror, his body locked against Mack's, his face contorted, thin, wraithlike body twisting madly. He hated what he saw and yet he couldn't stop it. There was no way. He couldn't make it end, couldn't make the pain any less. 

It was exhaustion that finally won out. He fought and fought and squeezed every last bit of energy out of his system. He was huddled in a tiny ball on the tiny montage of tiling in the bathroom, Mack hunkered over him, still clutching his wrists. His face was on his knees and he was sobbing, couldn't breathe. Sobbing and tired and he could hardly move. He weakly made a motion, trying to show that he still had energy. Mack's hands were firm. He wanted to speak but the sobs that burst out of his fragile body kept him from it. The sobs hurt and took energy he didn't have. The sobs wracked him and made everything shake and he couldn't stop them. He couldn't make it end. It wouldn't end. It wouldn't ever end. Jon and Elijah and Meyers' young stupid face. Meyers. Staring at him like he was the messiah come to an ignorant flock. Meyers talking to him. Frito was crazy too. 

If that last fact was supposed to make him feel better, it didn't. 

He was only dimly aware of being almost carried into the bedroom and being set on the overstuffed easy chair, of his shirt being unbuttoned and the t-shirt being slid on. Of hands unbuttoning his levis, of moving his butt so that the jeans could slide off and then again so that the shorts could go on. He huddled in the chair in a ball, sobbing. Everyone was gone so far into the long, long dark. No one had fought. 

He was given a glass of water and he expected pills. Pills or a syringe. But there was no needle or syringe. There was only a glass of water and then covers being tucked over his shoulders, lights being dimmed to murkiness and then to nothing, and he was scared. 

"Pleasepleasepleaseplase." The voice was a child's. Mulder wondered who was begging in such a young, terrified, pitiable voice until the bedside lamp came on. 

"Are you frightened of the dark?" Mack's voice was soft. Mulder hiccupped, trying to keep out the sobs that had suddenly renewed themselves. 

"No." Mulder embarrassed himself with the sobs that punctuated his voice. 

Mack stared at him. "Okay. Why don't I leave the bathroom light on. Will that be enough or do I need to get you a nightlight or leave on a lamp?" No mockery. Just a simple question. 

"Enough," Mulder managed. 

"Okay. Do you want me to stay while you go to sleep." 

"No." Nononono. He wasn't a child. But everything was so far away now. Everything had receded into nothingness. Everything was distant. Jonathan's body lay on a slab in the cold and someone had pulled out all his organs and sewed him back up. Jonathan was dead, he had gone were he had sent all the children. Was there a heaven? Fox knew there was not, but he desperately wished there was. Jon would be with Mary and Sarah. Everything would be all right. But there was no heaven. 

Mack took the water glass. "I'm going to sit in the door. If anything happens I'll be here. But it'll be like you're alone." 

Mulder swallowed. Nodded. 

 

Mack rolled out of his bed, feet hard against the hardwood floor of his bedroom, he raced across the two bedrooms, flicking on Fox Mulder's bedroom light. The screams were loud and terrified, and Mackenzie Forrester had no idea where Fox Mulder could find any energy at all, much less enough to scream and scream and scream like that. 

His figure was small and terrified, buried against the headboard. Ingrid was in the doorway and Mack waved her back away. Mulder's eyes were open. "I want my dad." The voice was terrified. "I want my dad." 

Mack swallowed, not sure how to answer that. Mulder wasn't here, wasn't listening. He was lost in some world his mind had decided was safe to play out nightmares in, because it was night. Because it was night and people didn't think you were psychotic when you had bad dreams. 

"Your dad can't come." 

"I want my dad," Mulder insisted. 

"I know you do." Mack got closer, Mulder scrambled even more tightly against the polished wood. "I know. But I'm here." 

"I want my Dadda. Where's my Dadda? He didn't hurt me. He didn't. Please let my Dadda come." 

Mack knew that Mulder had been abused, knew that from the conversation with Averman. Still he felt his stomach drop, felt the blood drain from his hands, felt his body grow cold. 

"It's okay. He'd be here if he could. But he can't. But I'm here. I'll take care of you. Like your Dadda." 

"I want him." The howl was inhuman, but the long form did not resist as Mack sat down on the bed and pulled him. The howling was painful. It did not strain Mack's ears. But there was something broken in it. He held Mulder's shoulders and head against his chest and rocked and tried to compete with the howls and the tears with lullabies. Held onto the psychotic form and rocked comfortingly and wondered what, if anything, Mulder would remember of this in the morning. 

 

The bath was quick and hot. He took off the layers of sweat quickly, got out, dried himself off. It still bugged the hell out him. 

Mack had given him nothing. No drugs. Mack hadn't sedated him. 

He pulled on boxers and then blue jeans and a shirt. The clothes felt so rough. He was tired. Clean and sweet smelling and tired. 

He lay on the bed, curled up on his side, waiting for Mack. 

The footsteps were quiet. An afghan. 

Mulder rolled over. "You didn't give me any drugs." 

"No." Mack watched as Mulder pulled himself up into a sit. 

"You should have given me drugs." 

"It worked out without drugs." 

"Do you have drugs?" 

"Yes." 

Mulder stared at Mack. "Why didn't you give me drugs?" 

"It wasn't the best thing for you." 

"How do you know that?" Mulder asked. 

"I talked a long time with Jack Averman. He told me everything. As long as I don't have to, I won't use drugs." 

"I suppose I should say I'm sorry." 

"If you're not sorry, don't apologize." 

Mulder considered Mack. Tried to reason out Mack's line of thought. Found he couldn't and just sat there. "I'm not crazy," he said softly. 

Mack wondered about that, but didn't challenge it. He'd had this charge for less than eighteen hours and had already gone through two crises. Matheson had scoured for someone like Mack. Good and confidential and willing to do a lot for a lot of money. The guy should probably be in a seclusion room somewhere. But the people around him were going to give him every chance to get his shit together before they took that road. And, you had to respect the things this man had accomplished. He deserved this chance. Even if it was an incredibly unlikely thing. He still deserved this chance. 

Mack gave the barest nod. "Why don't you come to breakfast?" 

"More oatmeal?" 

"I think she made some malt-o-meal for you." 

Like that was so much better, Mulder thought, put his socks on, slowly, painfully, then forced his feet into shoes. 

He ate half the bowl before he was too tired. "It's okay," Mack said, taking the bowl and dumping it into the sink. "But you're going to have to eat fairly often." 

Mulder swallowed and nodded. Drank a little more of the chocolate protein friend, a little flat Sprite. 

"I'm making potato soup for lunch," Ingrid informed them. "And some cup custards. Is there anything you like, Fox? It's got to be soft and light." 

"If you don't mind." Mulder gave an unsteady, half smile. "Please stop calling me Fox. I hate the name Fox." 

"What do people call you?" Mack exchanged a glance with the housekeeper. She seemed nice enough. And she hung on Matheson's every word. Matheson said jump and she turned green. 

"Mulder." Mack nodded at this, got up. 

While he was down the hall, Ingrid sat with him at the table. No one spoke. Mack came back with a small box. Tape and gauze and salves. Mulder sat, watched as Mack bandaged his hands, biting his lip, chewing on it, really, watching Mack salve and bandage the cuts and the burns, wrap cooling cloth over the raw places on his wrists. Mack gave him some Tylenol and the antibiotics he'd gotten in Lake Charles when it was over. Looked at the back of Mulder's head where he'd hit it. 

A nap before lunch, curled up on the bed, with a crocheted, (or was it knitted? It looked crocheted. Mulder's mother hadn't been much for either, although there had been plenty of female relatives who *had*.) afghan tossed over him. A nap that stretched on and when he woke, shadows were long and the light was golden, honeyed. His mouth felt funny, nasty and rubbery. He rubbed sleep from his eyes and wandered, barefoot, into the back den. The television was on, nominally, and Mack was reading The Eye of the Dragon, the new Stephen King. 

"Well. It lives." Mack's voice was friendly. 

"Yeah," Mulder replied sheepishly. His stomach growled. "What time is it?" 

"About seven." 

"Shit." 

Mack grinned. "Don't worry about it. When you're asleep I don't have to play Race Bannon, companion." 

"Did you ever wonder if Race Bannon was more than Dr. Quest's friend. . .I mean. . ." 

"Yeah. They were always *looking* at each other and there were so rarely *babes*," Mack replied. 

"Well, if you're expecting to get any Bannoning, forget it. I'm saving myself for some completely mindless encounters with the female of the species." 

Mack grinned. "At least you don't have to lie." 

"About what? Unless it's true what they say about guys with big muscles. . " He followed Mack down the hallway and into the kitchen. Ingrid was sitting at the table, writing a letter. She smiled at Mulder's approach. "I expect you're starving." 

"I'm hungry," Mulder replied, grinning sheepishly. "Ravenous." 

"Sit down," Ingrid ordered. She was a beautiful woman, even in her sixties. Her body was still slender, and her face was patrician. She spoke with a slight German accent, even though Mulder guessed she must have been in the states for many years. 

"Do you want Gatorade, Koolaide or Seven-up." 

"Seven-up." 

"Now, what was that about guys with muscles?" Mack asked. Mulder blinked, tried to remember the conversation. 

"Oh. . .Guys who build big muscles are making up for deficiencies in. . .uh. . .other areas." Mulder grinned. "Now, tell me why you have to lie." 

"Because women hear male nurse and think fag. I'm doing this because I like being able to work where I want, when I want, and always be in need." 

Ingrid brought Mulder his Seven-up, set it on the slick, polyurathene surface of the kitchen table. She set down a place setting and a cloth napkin. 

"I made an appointment for Monday with Dr. Walters. The senator knows her very well. She's a GP in Markville. There's also a therapist, Dr. Jacob Reid." 

"I don't want to go to any therapist," Mulder replied, darkly. 

"Well, Dr. Reid said to give you a few days to adjust, so we can put it off." Uh-huh. Mack thought about the tears and the anger and the confusion. "But you have to see someone. Tomorrow's Sunday. Do you go to church?" 

Mulder shook his head. "I don't believe in that," he said finally. Eliot believed in God, eventually. Why? Mulder wondered that, sitting there, staring across the evening dusk. Ingrid brought him a steaming soup bowl of potato soup. Everything was over and he was sitting here. Like Tiresius with his wrinkled dugs. Ingrid was watching something outside, distracted. Mack helped Mulder with the spoon. Mulder felt tears of frustration, but he let Mack help him. It would get better. It had to, didn't it? He ate his soup and didn't think about the answer to that question. Because it didn't have to get better. The screams. Again. Another night. More screams. And screams and screams and even when the lights came on suddenly, bathing the big bedroom in light, he was screaming. More energy tonight. He was between the wall and the heavy wardrobe. Huddled, trying to hide, to be small. Mack's approach sent him into hysterics. Sent him scrambling, terrified, his eyes bright and round, scattering light like crystal. "NONONONO." Mack swallowed and tried to wait. Tried to hope that he would calm down on his own. That he would be consolable. Averman had said. . .Averman had warned him. 

He watched Mack with fear and distrust. Crying and sobbing and rocking himself. Holding himself tightly in a tiny ball. Mack felt his heart sink. He hadn't wanted to give drugs. Hadn't wanted to send Mulder spiralling down. Oh God, that would be the first step leading to committal. 

Mulder wasn't hurting himself, just huddling terrified. Sobbing, screaming. Trying to make himself even smaller. Mack sat down cautiously, slowly. Sat and watched Mulder. 

The screams lost their severity eventually. As raw as his throat was, Mack had to wonder how he'd screamed as loudly, as long as he had. The howls lost their severity and became whimpers. There was something awful and horrible in this, in sitting and watching. In Mulder curled up. So terrified he would not speak. This terror, Mack swallowed to stare at it. This was not terror from the kidnapping or from the breakdown. This was something that went even deeper than beatings and bruises and never knowing when the belt would fall. 

"Mulder?" Mack asked softly. 

Mulder did not respond. Tried to swallow, acted though it was painful. 

"Mulder, I'm going to get you some water? Okay?" 

Mulder said nothing. Just stared. Mack moved. Got up. Went into the bathroom for water and a cup. 

"Jonathan said it was all right. But Sam's not dead." Mulder was speaking to the air, a soft, quiet tone as though to reassure himself. "I saw this blue light. And there was water in the car. Sam's not dead. They held me down and told me it would be all right. They always hold you down when you're hurt. They told me it would be all right. Tiresius in his grey skin. I assumed a double part. They always came back. They always come and you can't do anything." He was babbling now, his sandpapery voice muttering the words quickly. 

Mack sat back down with the water glass. 

"Fox." For some reason the name came easily. "Fox. I have some water. I want you to drink it." 

Mulder stared at Mack, finally acknowledging him. "She's not dead, is she? Jon said she was dead." 

His swollen eyes threatened more tears. His nose was red and puffy and he breathed rapidly through his mouth. 

Mack swallowed. "Come on. I know you need to drink some water." He pushed the water glass forward. 

"Pleasepleaseplease. Tell me she isn't dead. Tell me she isn't dead. Tell me they didn't come. SHE ISN'T DEAD!" His voice went up to the top of his current register. 

"No, Fox." Mack didn't know if it was the right thing to do, just knew that he couldn't answer that question with anything else. "No Fox. She isn't dead." 

"Jon said she was dead." It was a childish whine, made gut- twisting by the soft desperation and sorrow that ran through it. "Jon said I had to go to heaven to see her. He said she was dead." 

"It's okay." He still didn't know who Mack was. But he was willing to be comforted now. Willing for Mack to be there. "It's okay, Fox. It's okay." 

Mulder closed his eyes. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." His mouth choked. He began sobbing anew. Quieter sobs, not frantic. 

"Fox. Come on." Mack set down the glass of water. Put a hand around Mulder's sharp, thin shoulder. "Come on." He pulled the long, emaciated body out of the corner by sheer force, wrapped himself around Mulder, until the younger man was cradled in his arms and lap. "It's okay. 

"I'msorry. I'msosorry. I'msosorry. I am. I loved her so much. I didn't want it. I'msorry. They came and I. . .I. . .they always took me before. . .Allmyfault. ..Myfault." 

"It's all right. Shh. It's okay. It's okay." 

Mulder continued the slow litany of guilt and pain, counterpointed by Mack's soft shushing of calm until morning came, until finally, he dropped off into exhaustion, huddled, his face pressed against the crook of Mack's arm, clutching at the material of Mack's t-shirt. Face red and puffy. He scarcely moved when Mack picked him up, curled him up in the bed. He woke just for a moment, face swollen and miserable, stared at Jon. "I'm sorry," he muttered again. 

"It's okay," Mack said, putting a soft, calming hand on the dark brown hair. "Everything's all right." 

Continued in part 38...................... 

=========================================================================== 

From: livengoo@tiac.net Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 38/41 NC-17 Date: 27 Feb 1996 11:11:43 GMT 

Oklahoma (Part 38/41) By Amperage and Livengoo Copyright October, 1995 

International Readers: No third season spoilers Rating: NC-17 for language and violence 

Fox Mulder and the X-Files are the creation and intellectual property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting. The FBI is the property of the US Government. Oklahoma and Louisiana and Texas belong to exactly who you think they'd belong to, and everything else belongs to Amperage and Livengoo. 

__________________ 

Mack watched the figure sleep, huddled fetal under the covers. He'd had to remove an antique quilt from this bed when he came. Had to put away all the things that Mulder might bump into or throw or use as a weapon against himself or against someone else. He was exhausted now, but he knew that if he went into his own bedroom again, he would lie staring at the ceiling, body angled so that his legs were comfortable in the confines of the sleighbed in his room. He would not sleep. 

Mack had credited Jack Averman's portrait of Mulder as far as it went, but had believed it overdrawn. Now, staring at the sleeping figure, the clutched fists even in sleep, Mack knew Averman had tried to tell the facts straight, without embellishment. 

Ingrid came in. "Are you still going to keep him off the drugs?" she asked quietly. 

Mack moved his legs from the ottoman. Ingrid sat down. "I'm still strong enough to control him, so we don't need the powerful tranqs. And the other things I could give him would. . .he won't trust me until he knows that I won't drug him," Mack said quietly. 

Ingrid nodded. Mack wondered again who this woman was. There had to be some story here. Something. 

"Do you think he will get better?" Ingrid's voice shook Mack out of a haze of exhaustion. 

"I don't know," Mack answered honestly. "At this point I don't know. I know he wants to." 

Ingrid sighed. "He is trying very hard." 

Mack nodded silently. "It's good of Senator Matheson to give him this opportunity. He'd be in seclusion at any hospital, probably full of neuroleptics." 

"Rick takes care of his family." Ingrid replied quietly. "And his friends and his people. He will do whatever he must to help Mulder." 

"What group are you in?" Mack asked softly. 

Ingrid had been staring at her hands. Now she looked up, startled. "I'm his friend," she replied gently. "One of his oldest friends." 

 

He woke and his mouth was too dry even to smack his lips. Mulder stared at the bureau on the opposite wall, too tired to move his head or focus. 

He lay a long time, just staring, until he could concentrate. Then moved cautiously, sat up, rubbed the tear crumbs from his eyes. It was full day, middle of the day. Mack was asleep in the big comfortable chair with the ottoman. Mulder swallowed, glanced at the corner between the wall and wardrobe. Slid his feet out of the bed. 

His feet were quiet on the carpeted floor. Most of the rooms had hardwood floors. His had carpeting. Mulder wondered if his bedroom had been chosen for its connecting door and carpeting. Mulder filled a glass with water and drank noisily. Filled a second glass. When he looked up, Mack was standing in the door way. "Hey." 

"Hey." Mulder took long gulps of the tepid fluid. 

"How are you feeling?" 

"I'm okay." He was tired and he ached and his head hurt and his hands hurt and he was still sleepy. 

"Do you remember last night?" 

Mulder stared at his own reflection in the bathroom mirror. 

"Averman said that sometimes you don't." 

Mulder considered the glass in his hands, the smooth roundness. Considered how it would feel dashed against the bathroom counter. How the slivers would feel as they were imbedded in his hands. He closed his eyes. "I remember that I was dreaming about Jon and then bad things started happening," Mulder replied. "I remember being scared." 

Throw the glass and before Mack can get to you you can already have felt the sharp slivers of glass and be part of the sharp physical pain that will carry you past the aching, unendurable misery that rises in your chest. 

He felt Mack's closeness. Felt Mack's hands on his, gentle, not forcing. Not making. Mulder let Mack have the glass. 

"Do you feel like going into the kitchen or would you rather curl up in bed and eat?" Mack's voice didn't change. Mulder opened his eyes. Mack had the glass, but he hadn't changed stance or mood. 

"I. . .want to go outside." Mulder surprised himself. He wanted to be out in the summer heat. 

Mack nodded. "Can you take a bath by yourself, today?" 

The today made it easier to swallow, to admit the truth. Mulder shook his head. He was too tired. He wanted to take a long, hot shower. He was scared of being alone. 

"Do you want a bath or a shower?" 

Mulder considered this. "I want a shower." 

"Okay. I'll get the water right and you can take your shower." 

He showered with Mack in and out of the bathroom, getting his clothes laid out on the bed, doing this and that, laying out all the medical supplies, talking to Ingrid. Showered long and slow. There was shower soap on the neck of the showerhead, so he didn't have to bend down, didn't have to worry about the slick smooth bar falling out of his hands. He washed his hair, feeling the soap slide down over his achy body. Feeling it seep into the scabs on his head and his hands stung with biting pain. . 

Mack had a pair of shorts, a t-shirt, underwear. Mulder put it on, put on his tennis shoes and socks, wandered into Mack's room, hair still wet, slicked to his head. "Did you think it would be like this?" he asked, sitting down on Mack's bed, letting his hands and wrists be cared for. No more bandages, just some salves. 

Mack went into the bathroom for some more water and the electric razor that Mulder was simply too tired to use himself. When he came back he answered. "No." 

Mulder nodded and took his pills. 

 

A soft boiled egg, soft, buttery toast with the crust cut off. Mulder ate on the wide, covered porch, staring past the screening. He was sleepy, but the heat was warm and palatable. He stretched out on an iron swing, dandelion yellow paint flaking in a worn patina. Bright canvas pillows made the sharp places soft and cushioned his head as he sat watching the hot afternoon, as the ceiling fan stirred the air. Mack sat on the other end of the back porch, absorbed in his book. 

Mulder found himself thinking about Meyers. It hurt to think about it. Meyers had gone down into the filthy warm water. Meyers had gone down and pulled Mulder free. Meyers had been so young. Mulder remembered teasing Meyers, helping Meyers with his notes. Oh God. 

It wasn't the first time he'd gotten some one killed. With John Barnett. His fault. The little therapist they'd sent him to until he played their word games good enough that everyone thought he was all right. And there was always Sam. Always and forever. The memory of his father's belt made Mulder start from his warm drowse in the swing. 

"Anything wrong?" Mack might be absorbed but he was keeping an open ear. 

Mulder swallowed and shook his head. Closed his eyes. Frito was somewhere in California in the same shape as Mulder. He pushed his head against the brightly colored pillow again. 

It hurt so fucking bad. It hurt and it hurt and it filled him with pain. Mulder didn't know if he could ever fill the hurt and ache inside him. He pressed his face against the warm metal back of the swing and wished he were dead. Just dead. Dead and nothing would ever, ever matter again. Everything would be all right. 

 

"Hey." Mack's voice was soft. Mulder looked around confused. It was beginning to get dark now. 

"Ingrid's pastor is here. Visiting. We're going to go in and just say hello. Then get you ready for bed. Ingrid made you some bread pudding." Mack rubbed his shoulder gently, helped him up. 

He felt as though the meeting were on a planet distant to him. He was alone in his world, alone and the words from the world Ingrid and Mack and Brother Rick Miles inhabited echoed through ancient crystal radio kits before they were heard and interpreted. Brother Miles seemed quite in awe of the FBI agent, the hero who had been kidnapped by the Baby Butcher. 

"Jon wasn't a butcher." Mulder found his voice, as Mack laid out his night clothes. 

"Hmm?" Mack came back from his own room, had Mulder's drugs. There was glass of sweet tea on Mulder's bedside table. 

"Jon wasn't a butcher. He was trying to help those kids." 

Mack nodded, handed Mulder his pills. Tylenol and antibiotics. Vitamins. 

"That preacher thinks that people go to heaven when they die," Mulder said, swallowing the pills. "Jon just believed it more than most people. He didn't want anyone to be hurt. In heaven, no one is hurt. He. . .he just wanted me to go to heaven with him." 

"Can you change clothes on your own?" Mack's voice was soft. 

Mulder nodded. 

"He wanted to see his brothers and sisters. He said Sam was in heaven. He thought she had to be. It was all my fault." 

"Being kidnapped?" Mack didn't hide the disbelief in his voice. 

"No. Sam." Mulder yawned, finished pulling off his tennis shoes. "Samantha. I let them kidnap her." 

"No, you didn't. She was kidnapped and you were too small to do anything." 

Mulder stared at Mack, tilted his head to one side. "Mom and Dad wouldn't have left me with her if I weren't big enough to take care of Samantha. I was big enough. But I didn't protect her well enough." He pulled off his shirt and shorts. 

Mack swallowed. "I know you think that. I know. But, Mulder, I don't think that. And everyone else who knows about your sister's disappearance doesn't think that way." 

"My Dad said it was my fault. It was. He wouldn't talk about it. But he hit me. He hit me because I lost her." Mulder put on his ratty old FBI t-shirt and a pair of jersey shorts. 

"Okay. Why don't you go into my room. There's a TV in there and a VCR. You can put in a tape or whatever. I'm going to get you some supper," Mack offered. "I don't know why your dad hit you. If he blamed you it was because he was hurt too. Not because it was your fault." 

Mulder bit his lip. "I don't think this is going to work," he muttered. "I'm sorry." 

Mack stopped his movement, putting Mulder's clothes into a hamper behind the door. "What?" he asked. 

"I think I need to go to the hospital. I think that would be best. They'll drug me. Won't they?" Mulder asked, staring hard at Mack. 

Mack swallowed, nodded. 

"If they drug me, I won't have to think. I won't have to remember. I just want to curl up somewhere and not have to think. I killed Meyers and I lost Sam. I killed them. And Sam is crazy and Jon is dead. I didn't want to die. I spent so much energy trying not to die. Trying to be okay. But I shouldn't have. Jon was right. He didn't know it, and he didn't understand this, but he was right. " 

Mack's voice was very soft and low now. "What was Jon right about, Fox?" 

Mulder closed his eyes, pulled his knees up onto the bed with him. Shook his head. 

"Jon was trying to kill you." 

"I know. He was right. If I go to a hospital, it'll be forever." 

He felt Mack's closeness, felt the other man displace the surface of the bed. "Jon wasn't right. Jon was hurting." 

"I'm hurting." The words burst out with a sob. "I just want to go away. *I don't care* if there's a heaven or if we just die. I just want it to be over." He trembled with the force of the pain inside him. "Meyers is dead and Sam is crazy. And I just wish I were dead too." It was a child's statement, and Mulder knew he shouldn't have made it. Shouldn't have told Mack anything. But it was so hard not to. So hard to be quiet. So hard to think not to. 

Mack was suddenly there. Rocking him, the way you do a little kid. "I know it hurts." The voice was gentle. "I know it does. I know. But you're trying. You're trying sooo hard. That's what you have to do. You have to try." 

Mulder pushed away from the warmth and the comfort, but Mack wouldn't let him go. Mulder made a small scream, not wanting the warmth, the gentleness. 

"Do you want to take something so it won't hurt so bad?" Mack not letting go, not forcing Mulder into the cocoon of safeness. 

"No," Mulder replied, and the No echoed into a soft howl. 

"I can give you something." 

"I doan' wan' it." 

"Okay," Mack agreed. "Okay. I'm just going to stay with you. Okay?" 

"I wanna' go to bed." 

Mack sighed. "Okay. Let's leave on the back lamp and I'll sit and read." It was not a question and Mulder sensed it was not open to debate. Mack pulled the covers down and Mulder scooted back until he could push down against the smooth cotton, be tucked in. 

He lay there, staring at the wall, watching as Mack went in and out and came in with some paper and a notebook and that damn Stephen King novel. 

Lay there in his misery, not thinking, not sure what he was doing. 

"If I ask you won't make me?" he asked. Mack looked up, startled. 

"If you ask what?" 

"If I want some Valium. Not a lot. You won't make me next time?' 

"No. I won't make you unless I can't control you. If you're going to hurt yourself and I can't stop you, then I have to. Other than that, no. I won't ever make you take anything." 

That was fair. Mulder nodded. 

"Do you want some Valium?" 

Mulder considered saying no. But he shook his head yes. 

Mack helped him sit up to drink the water. And the pill made it easier, made everything hurt less. 

 

She was nice. Soft spoken. She was slow and careful and she didn't tell Mulder anything. They took blood and pee and then Dr. Walters examined him, listened to his lungs and looked at his hands and wanted to know about how he felt, what he was eating, she looked down his throat and into his ears and eyes and told him to get dressed while she talked to Mack outside. 

"She said you need feeding," Mack said when Mulder emerged, dressed. They walked through the cheap paneled hallway of the clinic, went by the desk. The girl behind the counter wore skin tight blue jeans and a brightly patterned shirt with mother of pearl snap buttons. "She wants to see Fox in a week." The girl addressed Mack. "So next Monday? At eleven again?" 

Mack nodded. "Yeah." 

"Okay." The girl wrote the appointment down on a card and they left. There was no bill. Not given to them then anyway. 

"That's it?" Mulder asked, getting into the Bronco. 

"Well, you're malnourished and anemic. Your throat is raw, and your hands are healing." 

"Why didn't she tell me?" Mulder persisted. 

"Because I told her that you might not be very aware. You are sometimes and you aren't sometimes." 

"I didn't wake you up last night." Mulder said softly. 

Mack stopped at a red light, glanced over at Mulder curiously. "Do you want to stop and buy anything?" 

"Like what?" 

"I don't know." Mack shrugged. "Did you have a bad dream last night?" 

Mulder shrugged. 

"I need to know when you have bad dreams." 

Mulder didn't reply. He stared at the streets of the small town, watched the people coming and going. 

"Well, she wants us to keep track of everything you eat. She doesn't think you're getting enough calories." Mack drove carefully through the traffic. "Ingrid's not going to be in when we come home. Why don't we stop at the DQ and grab some lunch?" 

Mulder shrugged. "As long as you don't get steakfingers." 

Mack recognized an internal joke. "There's a MacDonald's here too, but I'd rather take you to DQ, they make slushes." 

"No. DQ's fine. But Jon took me to a DQ. . .I told the cops who I was and they thought I was a mental patient." Mulder glanced at Mack. "I know I look like one." 

"You look like someone who's been sick a long time," Mack responded automatically. Although he knew that Mulder had it pegged. 

"At least I'm not wandering through a Thorazine haze," Mulder said mirthlessly as they pulled into the parking lot. 

The DQ was crowded. Farmers and houseworkers and the dirt poor hill people. "How about a milkshake?" Mulder suggested. 

Mack shook his head. 

"Cherry Limeaide then," Mulder said. "I'll go grab a booth." 

He took a seat against the window, watched a woman with her kids in the booth across from him. She stared resentfully at Mulder in his ragged Nike running shoes and OP shorts and his Polo shirt and his Seiko watch. She and her kids were dressed in thriftstore, Walmart seconds. The oldest little girl seemed to be drawing most of the young mother's ire. In the flat, tones of the hill country, she complained at the child's every move. Mulder watched, staring at the poor, uneducated woman, fascinated as though she were a snake. 

Mack came back with a the drinks. 

"If I fight you and win can I have your burger?" Mulder asked. 

"Oh sure," Mack replied, grinning. "Sure." 

The scents were strong and greasy and it smelled wonderful. Mulder sipped his slush and the mother's hand reached out and slapped her little girl across the face. Mack's hand was under the table and firm and hard and holding his knee. "Don't," he cautioned. Mulder stared hard at Mack. 

The little girl started to cry but held her sniffles hard. "Do you want some more of that?" the mother said loudly. Other people were watching now, too. 

The little girl muttered her dissent. And the baby beside the mother began wailing. The mother ignored her child. Mack's hand was firm on Mulder's knee and he was watching Mulder closely. "Do we need to leave?" he asked in a whisper. 

Mulder said nothing. 

Another slap and then the mother began fussing with the baby, rough and uncaring and tired and the little girl sat beside her younger siblings and tried not to cry. 

"Come on," Mack said. 

They left the red plastic marker and Mulder left his cherry limeaide and inside the Bronco Mulder huddled against the seat and said nothing, would not speak. 

Mack made it out of town before he realized what Mulder was doing, what he was doing underneath the soundless tears. He pulled off onto a culvert that led into the forest, a log truck road long deserted and pulled Mulder's hand away from his face, stared at the blood that welled from the bite marks in an ovoid of pain. Mulder didn't say anything just tried to jerk away. The tears became sobs. Mack undid Mulder's seat belt, reached behind the seat and brought up a backpack. "I know you're upset. I know," Mack began gently, softly. Mulder reached at the door, couldn't pull it open. "Mulder, calm down. I'm just going to put some bandages and some tape on the wound. But you have to promise me you won't do anything else." 

Mulder didn't speak, couldn't speak. 

He heard sounds of paper ripping. 

"You said you wouldn't drug me." Mulder found the words, as he began sobbing loudly. 

"Then you have to talk to me. I can't drive home with you like this. Mack finished pulling liquid into a needle. "This is just Valium, a heavier dosage of what you took last night." 

"I don't want it." Mulder tried to scream through his panic and his tears. "Please. Please don't make me." 

"I won't." Mack sighed and put the syringe down on the dash. "You've got to help me out." 

"Why did she hit her? Why do they hit? I helped them kill Jonathan. What did he do that was so much more wrong than that woman? Jon loved those kids. I helped them find him and he's dead and the woman is still making babies and still hitting her kids and it isn't fair. . ." 

"I know. I know. It isn't fair and it isn't right, but there wasn't anything you could do." 

"He used to hit me and we'd go to the emergency room. Momma would take me and the nurses were always nice. But nobody ever did anything. I always went back home. I don't understand. I don't understand. After Sam he hit me because I lost her. But I didn't do *anything* then. And he would just get mad at me. . ." Mulder sobbed and choked. "It hurts so bad. . .I don't understand. . ." 

"It hurts and when you hurt yourself you didn't feel it so much did you?" 

"No," Mulder answered. The biting had carried him past it, as long as Mack had let him. 

Mack sighed. "Okay. Let me put something over your bite. We'll go home. If you try to hurt yourself again, I have to give you the Valium. Not because I want to. I don't. I don't like doing it. But I can't let you hurt yourself." 

Mack's hand was firm and gentle and he pulled the soft cotton of a handkerchief over Mulder's wound. 

"I'm sorry." Mulder sniffled as Mack reached over and slipped the seatbelt back around him. 

"It's okay," Mack replied. "I didn't like having to sit there either. When we get back in you'll have to drink a protein drink." 

Mulder made a face. 

"The doctor. . .she wanted you in a hospital. That's why she wouldn't talk to you." Mack sighed. "You haven't gained any weight since you came here. You've got to gain some weight." 

Mulder took a deep breath. "It's hard. There are so many things I've got to do. I've got to get better. I've got to gain weight. . ." 

"You're not fighting it alone, at least. You've got me. And Ingrid. And Matheson. We're all going to do everything we can to help." 

He drank the protein drink, ate a small bowl of rice pudding. Went onto the porch and curled up in the swing. It was hot. Damn hot. But Mulder found he didn't care. The warmth was like a comforting blanket. Mack was unobtrusively close, munching on a chicken wing as he pulled out his novel. 

"Is this what you do?" Mulder asked, inspecting the bandage of gauze and tape that Mack had laid over the wound on his arm. 

Mack did not answer immediately. "Yes," he said finally. 

Mulder sat a moment, staring at the smooth cleanliness of the loose loomed cloth. Somewhere inside he was listening to a woman slap her child. "Why?" 

"Because it's good work. Because I like helping people." 

Mulder mulled this answer for a while. There were things he could say, comments he could make, openings into his own life that he could give Mack, but he was clearly conscious of the fact that once he said them, once they were open and clear, he was stuck with it, with Mack knowing and, ultimately, with the Senator knowing. He kept his mouth shut and pushed himself down the swing until a good bit of his leg was over the wide, curving side of the iron swing, and his head was against the hot canvas pillow. 

 

The whimpers were soft and pathetic. Mack watched Mulder's pass through REM begin and swallowed, felt his stomach turn leaps. The whimpers and biting lips. Mulder turned and twisted on the swing, hands deforming themselves into tiny, hard little balls, his nails digging and biting the smooth surface of palm. 

Mack was there, kneeling beside his charge, trying to convince him to "wake up. Shh. Man, come on. Wake up. Wake up. It's okay." 

Mulder inhaled a deep, ragged gasp of air and sat up, eyes wide. He exhaled and stared at something horrifying in his dreams. The next draw of breath contained all the pain that had been building inside him. A jagged sob rose in his throat. 

Mack slid himself onto the edge of the swing, grabbed Mulder's shoulders. Mulder twisted, pulled away, the sobs were louder and grating. His hazel eyes revealed nothing of awareness or of sanity. Mack swallowed. Mulder pulled his knees to his chin, wrapped his arms tightly around his legs, began rocking. No screams. 

Mulder fought Mack's hands for a while, fought without cognition of what he was fighting. Sobbing and twisting to get away. Terrified of something that had chased him up from his dreams to here in the bright sunlight where most nightmares must die. When he finally stopped fighting, he knew where he was, knew what had happened. He tensed, feeling Mack's hands on his wrists, Mack's concern. "I'm okay," he whispered under the ragged, echoing sobs. 

"I know." Mack's voice was gentle. 

Mulder put his face down in the small valley between his knees and his torso. "I'm sorry. I'm crazy, I think. Aren't I?" 

"You're going through a rough time. Mulder, this wouldn't be any easier anywhere else." 

"I wouldn't know. I wouldn't be aware. They'd drug me first and then do ECT and I wouldn't know. It would be all over. I'm tired. . ." Mulder broke off into sobs. "I'm so tired. I'm sorry Meyers died. I wish it had been me. I wish they hadn't found us until it was all over. Meyers shouldn't have died. It was my fault. Oh God, I wish I could have gone to his funeral. His family must think I don't care." Painful breaths and sobs that were as loud as his voice could give. 

Mack rubbed Mulder's shoulder comfortingly. Oh shit. Mack knew where all this had been leading, knew and had hoped it would turn away. Yeah right. 

"You're fighting. That's all that counts right now. You're fighting. Don't give up. You can't give up," Mack said. He'd meant it as a placation, but as soon as he said it he knew it was true. "If you give up then Meyers doesn't count. As long as you don't give up, it counts." It was a small pathetic thing to say. But it was all Mack could think of that was true. He sighed and rubbed Mulder's back in gentle circles, let Mulder cry. 

There was more bread pudding for supper. And another protein drink. "Why don't you just feed me sweetened condensed milk?" Mulder asked sarcastically, sitting on Mack's bed, in front of the TV. 

"You wouldn't keep it down," Mack replied without thinking. "What's on tonight, anyway?" 

"Monday night. . .I dunno. I don't watch much TV." Mulder sighed as Mack flipped through channels. He looked through the local paper for channels. "You seen The Untouchables yet?" 

"Not yet." Mack looked up from his place on the floor, glanced over Mulder's shoulder at the advertisements for movies. Untouchables, Cinema 6. "You think you're strong enough or well enough to go to the theater?" 

"Not right now. But I might in a few days." Mulder slid him the entertainment page. "Kevin Costner as Eliot Ness. . .I dunno. . .he looks like a Hoover man and all, but he's just so. . ." 

Mack snorted. "I'm surprised they don't have you on recruiting posters. Probably scared they'll attract too many fags." 

"Oh, like Hoover's lingerie collection wouldn't have that effect," Mulder replied, picking up his bowl to eat. Mack settled the channel on ESPN. They watched a forgettable baseball game, absorbed in the timeless, forgiving patterns of play. 

Continued in part 39.................. 

=========================================================================== 

From: livengoo@tiac.net Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 39/41 NC-17 Date: 28 Feb 1996 06:21:20 GMT 

Oklahoma (Part 39/41) By Amperage and Livengoo Copyright October, 1995 

International Readers: No third season spoilers Rating: NC-17 for language and violence 

Fox Mulder and the X-Files are the creation and intellectual property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting. The FBI is the property of the US Government. Oklahoma and Louisiana and Texas belong to exactly who you think they'd belong to, and everything else belongs to Amperage and Livengoo. 

_______________________ 

"Hey man." Averman's voice was steady, unwavering. Mulder smiled at Mack, adjusted his grip on the cordless. 

"Hey. How are things on the task force?" 

"Just about to wrap up. I did Meyers' funeral. His family. . .they're proud of him." 

"Oh." Mulder swallowed. 

"I hear you're not having an easy time of things." 

"No. Not really." Mulder curled up in his chair in the den, watched as Mack left the room. "I'm so fucking hungry, Jack, if you could smuggle me a pizza. . ." 

Averman's laugh was full. "And get Senator Matheson mad at *me*? Haven't you learned that the first thing they teach you when you get to be a supervisor is how to cover your own ass?" 

"How's Sam?" 

"I talked to Jenni yesterday. She said being with his family's helping Sam a lot." 

"That's good." 

"When I get out of this, I'm taking a vacation, I'll come see you." 

"And bring a pizza." 

"You have entirely too much of a one track mind." 

"Yeah." Mulder sat a moment. "Did Matheson tell you what's going on?" 

"Some. He said Mack told him you're having nightmares, a lot of them. And some self-destructive behavior. Mulder, they're not going to lock you away." 

"Is this reassurance?" Mulder found himself asking, without any humour in his voice. 

"I don't know. What's been happening?" 

"Oh. . .just. . ." Mulder put his head back against the chair. "I have bad dreams. And sometimes it hurts. It hurts so bad I don't know what to do. It hurts and if I hurt myself I don't feel the emotional hurt so much." 

"I don't know what to tell you. I know it hurts sometimes. Do you think it'll get any better?" 

"I don't know. I hope so. I'm trying." Mulder frowned. "What did you do when your wife died?" 

"I prayed sometimes and sometimes I yelled at God. And I cried. . .I had my kids and I had to act strong for them, but it was hard sometimes. But it gets better. You. . .sometimes it doesn't seem like it, but as long as you keep struggling, it gets better. You just keep getting up and putting on your clothes and one day you realize you haven't felt like the world's already ended for several days." 

Mulder sat, staring straight ahead. "I see Jon in my dreams. Sometimes it scares me and sometimes I'm glad." 

 

 

The monitor Ingrid brought in was white with powder puff blue edges. Rounded, nothing sharp. The words printed on the front of the transmitter base said "Fisher-Price." Mack plugged the base in by moving the bed and then sliding underneath on his stomach. Batteries for the receiver. It was a baby monitor. 

Mulder said nothing, just bit his lip, stared at Mack as he tested the system out. Sat on his bed with knees almost at his face. 

"I'm sorry," he said, when Mack came in. 

Mack sighed. "It's just to help me. It's not such a big deal. We'll get rid of it as soon as we can." 

Mulder closed his eyes. "I'm trying so hard, but it's not helping." 

"It'll get better," Mack replied as if by rote. 

"Is this all you do?" 

"What do you mean?" 

"I mean, all you do is take care of people who are losing it?" 

Mack gave a small frown. "I guess you could say that." 

"Do some of them go into hospitals?" 

"Some of them. Some of them are coming out of hospitals. And we avoid hospitals for some," Mack admitted. 

"Am I better or worse than most of them." 

"That's not a fair question." 

"Yes it is. You don't want to tell me." 

"No. It's not a fair question." 

"Okay. Those that went into hospitals, that you couldn't avoid hospitals. Am I better than they were?" 

"Mulder, that's still not a fair question." 

"Clinically I'm suffering from Chronic PTSD, delayed onset with the added diagnosis of major reactive depression. My level of functioning is very low. I can't take care of myself adequately and I have periods of destructive behavior. I'm not. . .if I killed someone the court would never get a conviction. If you took it before a judge you could get a long-term committal. You've sent people to hospitals who had higher levels of function than I do." It was not a question. 

"Mulder, yes, I have. But they were people with diagnoses of psychoses or who've suffered from long term clinical depression for years. You're not like that. Okay, admittedly, you have a very low level of functioning right now, but you're not psychotic. You've had to deal with some incredibly extreme stressors. Yes, you're having problems dealing with it. But I know you've dealt with the PTSD for a long time and the depression, is as you noted, part of the grieving process. If we wait this out and you keep trying you'll get better." 

"So I've had PTSD for a long time. So? There are veterans in the back corridors of VA wet-brain wards who managed their PTSD a long time before it claimed them." 

Mack took a deep breath and released it. "Yes. I know that. Look, the possibility exists that you won't be able to function in your old circumstances. Yes, the possibility exists that you'll need some sort of long term care. But I don't think it's a large possibility and neither does the Senator. You don't have to be well tomorrow. You have a luxury that a lot of people who don't make it don't have. You have as much time as you need. You have people who are willing to do whatever it takes to get you better. You are getting better. It's going to be in small steps and it's going to be frustrating as hell, but you will do it. You've got to." 

"Yeah, well, Matheson would probably have my butt if I didn't. God only knows what kind of blackmail he had to use," Mulder replied, trying to smile. 

Mack returned the smile. "For what it's worth, I think you're going to be okay. I don't think you need to be given Thorazine or ECT. I think you just need some time to recover. Just time and quiet. You have a lot to overcome, but it's entirely overcomeable." 

Mulder sighed. 

"You won't know if you can make it until you've tried. There's no way to know. You may not make it, but at least you'll have gone down fighting. There's honor in that." 

Mulder chewed his lip a moment. Looked at Mack. "I'll try. But you know it's hard." 

"Yeah. I know." Mack smiled honestly. "Come on. You need to get ready for bed." 

 

Mulder slipped into his chair at the kitchen table, staring pointedly at Mack's coffee. Mack put up his paper. "Sorry," he said, taking a sip. "Not yet. In a few more days maybe. The caffeine. . ." 

"The caffeine's why I want it," Mulder replied as Ingrid slid a coddled egg and soft toast before him. "I'm still sleepy." 

"Then go back to bed." 

"I'm hungry too." Last night, he'd woken, in tears. Mack had been there with a glass of water and when Mulder asked, there'd been a Valium that eased the ache and pain and the sure knowledge that he had betrayed Jon and Meyers and Sam, let him go back to sleep. 

"You have an appointment with Dr. Reid this afternoon," Mack said casually, watching Mulder push egg onto the spear of his fork. 

Mulder held onto the fork, motionless, staring down at the white surface of plate. After a moment he spoke. "No. I'm not going." 

"Senator Matheson made the appointment. There really isn't a choice." 

"I said I'm not going." Mulder looked at Mack. "I don't want to see anymore shrinks. I'm tired. I don't have the strength to play their mind games." 

Mack put his coffee down and rubbed his chin. "Look, Dr. Reid knows about your case. He's not going to be like Dr. Guiterriez was. He won't have you put into a hospital, no matter what you tell him. He won't do anything other than listen. He's safe. He'll just help you." 

"No." Mulder kept his voice firm. "No." 

"Mulder, look, you need someone to talk to. You need someone desperately." 

"I'm not going." The voice went up a notch. 

"Mulder, it really isn't a choice. It's just something you have to do." 

"I'm not going!" There were tears behind the words now. Mulder clutched the fork like a weapon. 

"Look, go this one time and then I'll call Matheson and you can explain it to him. Matheson's the one who gave out the orders. I'm just a lackey this time." 

"What have you told him about me?" 

"Reid? He just. . ." 

"The Senator?" Mulder shut his eyes, not wanting to cry. 

"Just that you have bad nightmares and that you've had a couple of destructive incidents." 

"I don't want to go!" His voice rose. Mulder stood. 

Mack sighed. "Mulder, don't get upset. There's nothing to get upset about. No one's going to use anything you say to do anything. I promise. It's going to be okay." 

"No." Mulder dropped his fork and left the egg half-eaten, went back to his room. 

 

 

It was quiet in his room. Mulder was miserable, nose stuffed up from crying. Mack had let him be, mostly. Sat in the overstuffed easy chair, gave him a cool washcloth. Mulder sucked on one corner of the soft blue terry material. He was trying, he was trying so hard, and everyone kept tossing landmines in his way. 

Mack's shadow passed over him. Water, with ice. 

Mulder rolled to his back and sat up. He wanted to refuse, but he was so fucking thirsty. His hands grasped the slimy surface. A plastic cup. Mack had replaced the glasses in the bathroom with plastic cups. They looked almost like glass. He wasn't trusted with glass. Mulder drank greedily. 

When he was done, he let Mack have the glass back. 

"More?" the older man asked seriously. 

Mulder nodded. 

Mack went to the restroom, filled the glass again, came back. Mulder drained this glass, was sated. 

"I can't change this," Mack informed Mulder sadly. "If I could, I would. I tried. Dr. Reid said he would come here, if you're not feeling well enough to go there. "I'm scared." Mulder's words were soft. "I'm so scared. You don't know how scary this is." 

"Mulder, the man's just a psychologist. You've got a PhD from fucking Oxford. His is from Podunk U." 

"*He* can make phone calls. *He* can recommend committal to Matheson," Mulder replied. 

Mack paused. Mulder got the distinct impression he was counting to ten. "Mulder, look. This is as close to a hospital as you're going to get. Everyone already knows you need to be committed. That's not even a question in *anyone's* mind, not even yours. Reid's been briefed on the situation. He already knows you have. . .periods of being out of control. He knows you have screaming meamies of nightmares. You could tell him all about the fifty two different ways you have planned out to kill yourself and this guy's not going to recommend committal." 

"I *know* I'm not being rational," Mulder spat out angrily. "I know. But I'm scared." He fell back against the pillows. Curled up on his side. 

"Are you going to keep fighting this?" Mack asked. 

Mulder did not reply. Just closed his eyes. "You give me this little illusion that I have some say. You don't drug me unless I'm hurting myself, you let me do what I want to during the day so long as there are plenty of naps. But the truth is that I have to do what everyone says to do. The truth is that I'm too sick to make decisions for myself. It may be the truth. . ." Mulder paused, choking on the pattern of tears that coursed the redness of his throat. "But I don't have to like that truth." The tears and the sobs overwhelmed him again. 

Jonathan had said he kept finding people to hurt him. 

He felt Mack's hand gentle on his hair. Mulder was torn between wanting the comfort and being mad that he needed the comfort. 

"I'll call and tell him to come down. He'll be here around 6:30." Mack's voice was soft and infinitely sad. He took the washcloth from where it lay on the bedspread, went and rewet it for Mulder. Handed it back to the agent. 

 

Ingrid brought him crackers and vegetable soup on a tray, set it beside him. "Come on," she ordered. 

"I don't want it." 

"I know. You still have to eat it." 

Mulder swallowed. 

"Mulder. Dr. Walters has given me a specific amount of calories you've got to eat everyday." Ingrid's voice was soft, regretful. "You haven't eaten that amount any day since she gave it to me. We've got to get some food down you, even if you *don't* feel like it. You've got to be getting hungry for some of the things that are in this." 

Mulder stared at Ingrid. "I'm tired of what I *have* to do." 

Ingrid sighed. "You don't feel like you can breathe, do you?" 

He nodded. 

"I know. It feels. . .you'd be happy to stop fighting sometimes. Just give in. Then people wouldn't expect anything of you. " Ingrid's hand was cool against his brow. "I know. There's no magic words to ease that. I know it's hard. Come on, sit up." 

Mulder pushed himself into a sit. The soup was rich and full of old noodles and occasional bits of tomato. The faint smell of beef. Potatoes and snap beans. A couple of peas and pintos. A few pieces of corn. Despite himself, Mulder felt his glands water. The smell of beef had been a trigger for his nausea for so long. The smell of cooked flesh. He tried himself, tried his body, waiting for the reaction. Nothing. It just smelled like vegetable soup. Just plain old, ordinary vegetable soup. And didn't smell half bad either. There were saltines and a slice of white bread on the side and a tall glass of iced tea, which was very bad for him, but Ingrid kept letting him have it. 

It looked pretty damn good, in fact. He stared at Ingrid. Swallowed. He didn't think he would cry over something like this. Didn't think that at all. And yet, there he was, the tears were trickling down his face. He had to give in on this. He had to. It didn't make it easy or all right. 

It didn't keep his stomach from churning with the force of his tears. 

But he ate. And it tasted wonderful. 

 

6:45. Mulder stared at the overly tall man sitting across from him. He had a nice face, kind eyes. Taller than Mulder, and probably skinny for most of his life, although now he was widening across the waist. Thick blonde hair, tending now to grey, thatched his almost angular scalp. 

He had a thick folder. Psych reports from Guiterriez and University Medical and FBI psych services. He'd given it to Mulder, let Mulder read it. Watched as Mulder skimmed through it. Guiterriez had been quite willing to press for involuntary. Had been quite sure Mulder was going to self-destruct and take two or three people with him when he went. Quite sure that Mulder was going to stop knowing the difference between reality and his dreams. Was going to wake up one morning thinking they were all little green men. 

University Medical recorded paranoia and "displaced anger and fear responses." He knew what FBI psych services thought about him and didn't even bother with that section before handing it back. 

It was an odd way to start a meeting. Entirely too straightforward. 

"What do you think?" he asked, watching as Reid put the folder back into his briefcase. 

Reid looked up, blinked. "I don't know. I don't know you." 

Mulder nodded. 

"I'd like to get to know you." 

Entirely too direct. 

"I won't lie. I was pissed that you wouldn't come to my office, but I can understand why you wouldn't want to see another shrink." 

Mulder stared at Reid blankly. 

"We've pretty much fucked you over. The therapist you've seen in the Bureau was pretty well satisfied when you said you were okay. You just smiled at her and flirted and she gave you a clean bill of mental health. Guiterriez thought he knew what was going on in your head even before he'd spoken with you. Neither method helped you very much." 

"On the whole I liked the first one better. At least I knew I could've fucked her if I wanted," Mulder replied. Reid smiled. Politely. 

"I was told that you have nightmares and that sometimes you're not in control of yourself." 

Mulder shrugged. Closed his eyes. 

"Is it more or less terrifying knowing all the facts and statistics?" Reid's voice was not a therapist's voice. It was a fellow psychologist's voice. 

"More," Mulder admitted. "More. I can't pretend. And I know where I should be. I know what they'd do to me." 

"In a hospital?" 

"Yes." Mulder swallowed. Opened his eyes. "What's your degree in?" 

"Clinical." 

"What do you do?" 

"I have a practice. I do some forensic. I work in a couple of hospitals. Your PhD is Clinical too?" 

Mulder nodded tightly. 

"Where did you do your internship?" 

It was a strange question. Mulder stared at Reid unblinking. 

"You've done some therapy?" 

"I did my internship at the Rodham institute. It's a state run institution. Mostly for the criminally insane." 

"Where did you work?" 

"On the lockdown ward. It's not so much therapy with them as it is game playing." 

"Was there anyone with your diagnosis?" 

Mulder shook his head. "They put those people in other wards. Shot them full of Thorazine and electricity. Had them coloring pictures and cutting out rainbows." 

Reid nodded as though he might have learned something from this. The move struck Mulder as somewhat arrogant, but he said nothing about it. "I did a umm. . .I did my dissertation on Motivations in Satanic Slayings. I didn't learn very much about Satanists. But I learned a lot about paranoid schizophrenics." 

Reid grinned at this one. "Did you ever think about practicing?" 

"No. I wanted to do Forensic work." Mulder shook his head. He drew his knees up to his chest to give himself some protection. 

"Is that how you started out? You always wanted to do Forensics?" 

Mulder swallowed. Thought about his life, put his face against his legs. Said nothing. It occurred to him that he could have just acted as though nothing bothered him. As though he were fine. He'd done that before. But he wasn't fine. And he'd answered all the questions he wanted to about his career choices. 

There was silence a moment and a slight pen scratch. No doubt to remind Reid to come back to this one sometime. "Do you want to get something to drink?" Reid's voice was soft. Mulder looked up. Surprised. They'd only been in this room fifteen or twenty minutes. The shortest therapy sessions were usually thirty. Except with severely disturbed cases. Then, because of shortened attention spans and reality problems, you cut the sessions to fifteen minute spans. The best arrangements are fifteen minute sessions spread out several times a day. 

Mulder had curled up at the fifteen minute mark, not wanting to talk anymore. So Reid had made a decision. It was humiliating. Mulder closed his eyes. "I'm. . .I'm not thirsty." 

"Well, I'm going to go find something to drink. Why don't you come with me?" 

Mulder shook his head, inside the protective barrier of knees and legs. Stayed where he was. 

 

 

He heard voices recede and then voices surged. "Fox." Mulder looked up in surprise at Matheson. 

"Why don't you come get something to drink in the kitchen." Matheson suggested, holding out a hand. 

Mulder swallowed, blinked a few times. "I'm not thirsty." 

Matheson blinked a moment. "Come on anyway." 

Mulder shook his head. He wanted to stay here, in this chair, where it was safe. Where he didn't have to move, have to see anyone. The world was cold and sharp edged and right now he wanted no part of it. 

"What are you doing here?" Mulder asked, despite himself. Watched as Matheson lowered himself into Reid's chair. 

"I'm going to take care of you while Mack has his day off." 

"Oh." Mulder swallowed. "Mack told me." 

Matheson nodded. "How have you been doing?" 

Mulder shrugged, put his knees down. "I don't want to see Reid." 

"Mack told me. Reid's a very close, very old friend of mine. He's not going to threaten you." 

"I don't want to talk to anyone about. . ." Mulder trailed. Sam'scrazyMeyersisdead. SamiscrazyMeyersisdead. SamiscrazyMeyersisdead. "I just don't." 

"I know it hurts." Matheson's voice was soft. 

"How's Sam?" Mulder asked abruptly. 

Matheson's face changed, such a slight filming of a change that most people would have missed it. Guarded now. Eyes flickering. Remembering who caused his son-in-law's insanity. "Jenni says he's doing better." 

"Is he crazy like me?" 

"No." A blunt, plain answer. "Sam's just depressed." 

Mulder swallowed. "Let me go to a hospital. I won't have to try." 

The film disappeared from Matheson's eyes. "Fox, if I sent you to a hospital it would destroy you." He stared searchingly at Mulder a moment, finally understanding that with some large part of himself, Mulder wanted the destruction. Mack brought Mulder a glass of juice. White grape or apple, Mulder guessed, watching Matheson with veiled eyes. 

"Where are you going?" Mulder asked. 

Mack gave a small half-smile. "I'm going to see some friends. Stay at their place. 

"When are you leaving?" 

"Tonight." 

"And you'll be back?" 

"Friday Morning." 

That was two nights and a day. Two nights without Mack. He stared at Mack, realizing that this was the arrangement Mack had made especially. To give him two nights without Mulder. Two nights of uninterrupted sleep. 

"I'm sorry," Mulder said, swallowing. 

"For what?" 

"Making things hard for you." He stared at Matheson. Matheson would have no patience. Matheson would hold him down. Matheson would be like Sam. 

"I'm not. . .Mulder, I don't hate this work. I'm glad I'm here. You need me. I just need a little time to myself. Just a little time. I get sleepy." Mack smiled. "I'm not upset, and it doesn't bug me that you need me at night. It just takes a lot of energy." 

Mulder swallowed. Nodded. "I'm sorry." 

Mack gave a sigh. "It's not your fault. Don't be sorry. I like helping you. Okay? But I need a little time for me. Besides." Mack smiled. "I got a couple of hot dates set up. I get any action you're the first person I tell." 

Mulder gave a half-smile. "Oh gee. I can't have any, but I'm supposed to listen to you brag?" 

"Exactly. Come on. I know you're not thirsty. But there's always Dr. Walter's calorie chart." 

Mulder made a face. 

Mack grinned. "Women." 

Continued in part 40....................... 

=========================================================================== 

From: livengoo@tiac.net Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 40/41 NC-17 Date: 29 Feb 1996 01:56:18 GMT 

Oklahoma (Part 40/41) By Amperage and Livengoo Copyright October, 1995 

International Readers: No third season spoilers Rating: NC-17 for language and violence 

Fox Mulder and the X-Files are the creation and intellectual property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting. The FBI is the property of the US Government. Oklahoma and Louisiana and Texas belong to exactly who you think they'd belong to, and everything else belongs to Amperage and Livengoo. 

Where, you've gotten this far. Next to last. That's right, the penultimate piece of the biggest bandwidth hog either of US ever put our hands to! Hope you're enjoying it, and will be here to the end. Goo _______________________ 

Reid settled into his place. 

"I went into Forensics because I couldn't hack working with normal people." Mulder's voice was dull. "I could handle working with the criminally insane. I remember coming out of a cell one time and the prisoner inside. . .he. . ." Mulder swallowed. "He told me that he would make me walk in darkness. As I walked down the hallway, every light fixture exploded. I walked down the hall in darkness, the light one pace ahead. There was glass everywhere on the hall. And some of the pieces hit me, like shrapnel. It hurt and it burned, but I kept walking like I had sense until I made it to the end. This orderly grabbed me like I was his kid and he held me, expecting me to cry or something. Then the ward nurse wanted me to go down to a hospital. I needed stitches in my shoulder from a big piece of glass. I needed to have the glass pulled out of my skin. I got a psychiatrist on another ward to do it for me. They drugged the hell out of the case and fixed the light fixtures. I hope I'd have more common sense now than to just keep walking." He grinned. 

Reid absorbed this. Evidence of delusional thinking, Mulder realized. He'd given evidence of delusional thinking. Oh fucking shit. 

"Do you believe me?" Mulder asked suddenly, staring at Reid. 

Reid stared back. "If I hadn't been on wards for the violently and criminally insane, I wouldn't. But I have." 

"Do you believe me?" 

Reid nodded. In his own eyes there was something sharp and shining, some memory that rivalled Mulder's. Mulder swallowed staring at Reid's memory. He wanted to ask, wanted to ask so badly. It was a terrifying question to ask. It scared him so badly. 

"Do you believe that I heard Jonathan or did I hallucinate it all?" He asked it in a rush. 

There was no answer. Reid sat quietly. Sat quietly, eyes fixed on the carpet. 

There was no "No, I don't, but I believe you feel it to be real and that's what's important." Reid was staring at the carpet. Was he frightened to speak and destroy the fragile acquaintanceship between them or was he frightened of answering what he thought? 

"It doesn't matter," Mulder excused. 

"It does matter. I just. . .I don't know. I don't know. I read your file last night and I just sat there in my bedroom, staring at the television set, frightened." Reid stared at Mulder. "We're going to treat it as though it happened. Not as though it were a series of hallucinations and delusions." 

The answer was yes then. Only Reid could not afford to say so. Mulder felt air rush out of his gut. He had not known he was holding his breath. 

 

 

Matheson had Mack's bedroom. And the blue monitor. Mulder went through his nightly ritual, showering, changing into his night clothes, tucking himself into the bed. He missed knowing Mack was in the next bed, was there when the dreams came. That he would be held and held and he would hear Mack's soft voice, calming and shushing. 

 

The sobs were soft and barely noticeable even on the baby monitor sitting beside Senator Richard Matheson's bed. Matheson rubbed his eyes, stared at the small alarm clock beside his bed. 2:30. He pulled himself from the bed and tugged on his robe. Trudged through the unlit bathroom. 

Mulder was curled up against the heavy headboard, eyes open very wide, sobbing, curled up there, trying to be small. In the sharp relief of shadows and dusty blue illumination, the figure, dressed in jersey shorts and a sleeveless tee brought forth memories, Ingrid's mother's stories of the camps, his grandmother's stories passed down from her own grandmother about the starvation and the crimes inflicted in the civil war. Survivor. What was left of those who clung on and somehow survived. 

"Fox." Matheson approached the figure carefully, trembling, breath hot in his body. Nervous, afraid that he would make the wrong motion, say the wrong words. What did he know of psychosis? 

At the calling of his name, Mulder responded by pressing his body against the headboard, by holding his breath in a desperate attempt to stop crying. 

"I'm sorry." The first words out of his mouth. "I'm sorry. I'm okay. You can go to bed. I'm sorry. Please." 

"Fox. You're not okay." Matheson sat down on the bed, trying to think of the words that would calm him. He reached out to the huddled, terrified figure of long bones like sticks. 

Fox screamed involuntarily, flinched, drawing his head down. "Please. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I didn'tmeantowakeyouup. Itwon'thappenagain. Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease." His voice was high and shrill and quite obviously terrified. 

Matheson let his hands drop, felt his gut twist up and his hands grow cold. He remembered Averman's warnings. Oh God. Oh God. 

"Fox. I'm not angry. I'm not." 

Mulder did not hear, was trying desperately to stop crying, to stop breathing, to press himself into the thick maple headboard. 

"Fox, it's all right. It's okay. I promise. It's okay." 

"Please, Dad, I'm okay. You can go back to bed." A sob, long and harsh, interrupted the terrified pleading. "Please. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you. I didn't mean. . ." 

"Fox." Matheson felt his mouth turn to cotton. "Fox, it's okay. You aren't going to be beaten. I promise I won't hit you. I promise." 

Mulder had heard this before. "Dad, I'm okay. Please Daddy. Go back to bed." 

Matheson swallowed, continued sitting where he was. 

"Daddeeee. I'm sorrrry." Mulder was panicking. Screaming, terrified. 

A new figure in the bedroom. Ingrid, her hair pulled back in a loose braid. 

"Please Daddy. PLEASE!" His voice was rising into hysteria now, into an unending terror filled place that no one could reach, where there would be no choices except for the awful sting of a needle. 

Without words Matheson got up, moved back, out of the bedroom. Ingrid took his place, calming and gentling, and trying desperately to get him calm. Mulder accepted her hands and accepted her ministrations, accepted her voice and her words and when Matheson left the room, Mulder was slipping loose of his hold on the bed, was letting himself be lured in close to her chest and to her comforting hands. He was sobbing and crying but Ingrid's hands were gentle and smooth and soft and comforting. 

 

"How is he?" Ingrid came into the kitchen as Matheson was cooking breakfast. 

"Asleep. Finally." Ingrid poured herself a cup of coffee. "It's good that he sees you as a father," she said quietly, putting equal in her coffee. "He needs father figures." 

"But it makes it hell on you." 

Ingrid smiled. "He's a sweet young man." 

Matheson smiled in return, wondering how many times in his life Fox Mulder had been called a "sweet young man." From Jenni's description of Sam's friend, he suspected you could probably count them all up on one hand and still be able to hold a cup of coffee. 

"You said he'd be here a couple of months. It's going to be at least three or four. At the very least. I suspect he'll have to spend Christmas here." 

Matheson stared at Ingrid, remembering the way she looked naked, the way her body moved. "That's fine then. He has that right." Ingrid nodded. 

"Do you want some extra household help?" 

"No. Mack and Mulder are both easy to care for. There's no problem there. 

Matheson nodded. "I told Reid that we'd come in this afternoon. Think Fox is going to be up for it?" 

Ingrid shrugged, sipping her coffee. "I don't see why not." 

"Is this common?" 

"All-nighters?" Ingrid nodded. 

"Tell me again that I'm paying an exorbitant fee for Mack. I want to give him a pay raise." 

Ingrid smiled over her mug. "What about me?" 

"You haven't seen what I'm getting you for Christmas," Matheson replied, grinning. 

"Just as long as it isn't Glenlivet again." 

"Oh God." Matheson closed his eyes. "That was the best sex I've had in years." 

"Stop dating twenty year olds. All body, no brain. . ." 

 

 

"The senator said you had bad dreams last night." Reid's voice was unconcerned as Mulder slipped into the wingchair beside his desk. 

Mulder grimaced, sighed. "I have bad dreams every night." 

"Do you want to tell me what you dreamed?" 

"Just. . .I was just. . .the Senator didn't know I need to have the bathroom light on at night and when he went to bed he turned it off. I had a bad dream." 

Reid tried to remain relaxed. "You haven't told Senator Matheson that you need that light on, even now." 

Mulder shrugged. "It's no big deal." 

"You were up all night, crying." Reid frowned. "It is, obviously, a big deal. Matheson said you confused him with your father. Guiterriez discusses a history of abuse that occurred at your father's hands." Reid paused, rubbed his nose. 

"So it's obvious that I transfer my feelings for my father to Matheson," Mulder finished for the therapist. 

Reid remained silent. 

"It's not like that. . ." 

"There's also the issue of your belief that the abuse was deserved. . ." Reid asked. 

Mulder shrugged. "No. I don't think that." 

"That's not what I've been told." 

"I. . .I have a lot of guilt about my sister's disappearance, but I know that it wasn't right, not what he did to me." 

"What did he do to you?" 

"Oh, you know." Mulder sighed, slumped against the heavy velvet material of the chair. "He beat me. He used his belt and sometimes a broomstick. Nothing very exotic. Just the traditional measures employed in savagely disciplining a wayward child. The same things that had been done to my own father by his father and probably by his father's father and on and on." He kept his body slumped, his voice casual. No indicators, no warning signs. Nothing that he did not want to say. He watched Reid flip through pages of handwritten notes. Felt his blood pressure ease back into the stratosphere. 

Reid was making hen's scratch notes, probably to explore this more, in depth, to discuss it. But not right now. His instincts were probably urging him to discuss this, to get it out of the way. But he was following his training, not his instincts. Come on. Follow your training. Don't listen to the feeling in the pit of your stomach. Mulder knew he could not stand that, not here, not now. 

"Your dad didn't believe in nightlights?" 

"Sam could. . .but I was a boy," Mulder responded. "I got over being scared of the dark at Oxford. . .I was. . .seventeen or eighteen. I had this roommate who helped me. . ." 

"When did you leave for school?" 

"I was fifteen, almost sixteen," Mulder replied, on easy ground now. 

"And your sister disappeared when you were twelve?" Reid was staring at him horrified. 

Mulder nodded again, trying not to understand why Reid was so upset. Why the psychologist's face was filled with pity and anger. If he understood he would have to remember those long nights. 

"He was gone on business trips a lot," Mulder excused. "When he wasn't home, my mom would let me sleep with the lights on. And after she left, I would stay with friends and we'd keep a light on somewhere." 

He closed his eyes, wrapped his arms around his chest. 

"Do you want me to tell Matheson about the light?" Reid asked. 

Mulder bit his lip. "I should tell him." 

"But you won't." 

"What if he gets mad?" 

"He won't, and you know he won't." 

Mulder shivered. "He'll ask me why I didn't tell him before. You know he will." 

"Why don't I call him in and we can ask now?" 

Mulder opened his eyes. Stared at Reid. Swallowed. Felt the fear grow up into his chest and his mouth and it was tight and hard and it hurt. 

"I'll tell him," Reid said finally. "He's not like your father. In some ways he is, but he wants you to get better. He's willing to do whatever it takes." 

"My dad wanted me to be strong too," Mulder muttered, even though he knew it was not fair and not logical and not true to say those words. They came out, bitter and angry. 

 

Matheson and Reid talked for about two minutes and then the receptionist asked Mulder to go back to Reid's office. Matheson was staring, genuinely hurt. 

Mulder felt a shiver travel up his spine, he tried to be who he was now: a tall, twenty-five year old man who was considered a hot shot in the Federal Bureau of Investigations. But all he could feel was the cold twisting of his viscera. 

"Fox. It's all right. I didn't know that you needed the light. I'll turn it on. If you need something, you can just ask. Whatever it is, it's okay." Matheson glanced at Reid, who gave the barest nod. 

"It's okay. I'm just. . ." Mulder tried to get more words out. "I'm sorry, sir," he finally said, closing his eyes. His breath hurt his chest. His hands were cold and shaking. He swallowed air, tried to control his breathing. He sat a moment, drawing composure into his body again. "Did you mean that? If I need something?" 

"Of course I did, Fox." So concerned and so gentle. 

"Well, I really would like a blonde: leggy, big hooters, really dumb. You know of any willing to comfort a sick G-man?" Mulder smiled, was rewarded with Matheson's broad easy smile and Reid's genuine chuckle. 

 

"My dad's the reason I got my PhD." Mulder's voice was soft as he slid down against the heavy plush velvet of the wingchair, as he put his face against the crook of seat and edging. Two hours had elapsed since thier last words, and now the sunlight of late summer afternoon slanted long and honey on them. 

Reid blinked at Mulder's obvious need to control this session by coming in with his own agenda. "Oh?" he asked in a voice that implied he did not believe Mulder's statement. 

They stared at each other. He's my father; he loved me; he only wanted what was best. So much said without words. 

"How?" 

"I told you I did the Fordham institute for my Clinicals?" 

Reid nodded. 

"I didn't start out there. I started out at a hospital in downtown London. They got the dregs of society, all the poor and the immigrants and the homeless. But it was supposed to be a really good proving ground. If I'd made it I might be in a big practice or teaching or something." 

"What happened?" Reid was genuinely interested, not as a therapist, but as a fellow psychologist. 

Mulder stared at his hands a moment. "I would go and I would just. . .I would lock myself into a toilet and I would just cry and cry and cry. It just. . .Finally there was this woman. . .her eight year old daughter had been kidnapped and held, tortured, raped and finally killed. . ." His mouth was dry, remembering the woman's nasal, lower class accent, the slow way she had moved, wrapped in her aged raincoat. Her heavy, doughy body slipping into chairs. "And one day I just walked out on her. I just walked out of the whole hospital. I don't remember it. I walked out and the hospital administrator was pissed. . .eventually they got in touch with some friends. I was in the Tube, sitting in a car, just sitting in a car staring at nothing, unresponsive to most stimuli. . .the police found me and handed me over to my friends. They took me home." His voice was numb. "My advisor wanted me taken from the program, failed, lose my doctoral candidacy status. I got better and in a couple of days I went to see him. He just started screaming at me and I collapsed again. He took me home and anyway, somehow or other he got in touch with my mom. In a couple of days I was okay, yet again. And he was. . .he told me he wouldn't accept me in the program I had been in, besides he didn't think the hospital would have me back. We discussed career options. He said he thought I might do well as a forensic psychologist, most of my best papers had been about psychopaths and paraphilias and other deviants. I'd had a couple of papers published already. 

I went home with the list we drew up of things I could do and I called my dad. He told me that he'd call around. The next day he said that if I wanted to work in law enforcement, I could have my pick. FBI, CIA, Army, you name it. He said it didn't even take his name. They'd heard that I was interested and wanted to know how to recruit me. . .I decided on the FBI. Not as many secrets. My Dad, he had a lot of secrets. . ." Mulder trailed, sighed. 

"The FBI wined and dined me. . . I was on a Lear Jet, headed to Quantico, two hours after I recieved my doctorate. They wanted me to skip out on my graduation, and get permission not to go through the ceremony, but the College Master told them to go to hell." Mulder smiled. "They threatened to make me wait until the next session, but I didn't have to. I missed the first three hours, got there in time for the first lunch." He sat a long time, considered the room around him. Let a companionable silence envelope the lazy summer lit room. 

"Will it ever happen again?" he asked. 

Reid was startled. "What?" he said. 

"Will it ever happen again?" The words had not been so very hard to say the first time, but they were hell to repeat. Mulder stared at Reid in anger. 

"Communing with a serial killer the way you did?" Reid asked, as though his own mouth were dry, as though he could not speak. "I don't know. Is that what you need to know?" 

Mulder thought about this question, this new conversation, unbidden. He thought, and then he nodded slowly. "Is it me or was it him?" he asked very softly. 

Reid caught it this time. Did not need to hear it twice. "Can you find that out?" he asked, seriously. 

Mulder swallowed. "If I can't, I want to be hospitalized. I don't care if they keep me so drugged up I have to wear diapers. I don't ever want to go through that again. I won't ever go through that again. I have to know." He stared at Reid. "I have to know who did it or it's always going to be there and I don't think I want to get better if I can't know." 

 

 

October 1988 Quantico, Virginia Behavioral Science Unit Office of John Thompson, Division Head 

Fox Mulder stared at the head of the Behavioral Science Unit, trying to appear perfectly calm. "May I ask why you disapproved my transfer request?" he asked. 

"You're the best profiler I've got. I'm not about to lose you." 

"You know. . ." Mulder paused. "You know what kind of problems I've been having." He stared at the older man. "I can't believe you'll keep me here. It's killing me. It killed Sam." 

Thompson sighed. "We all regret Agent Rodreguiz' death, Agent Mulder. I'm aware that you and Rodreguiz were friends. . ." 

"I cannot keep on doing this. You keep giving me these cases. . .kids buried in basements after they've been eviscerated, serial rapists who leave their victims lying in puke and waste. . .And if it's just a case to send back to the locals you require it to be done overnight. . .I can't keep up. . ." 

"I expect a great deal of you, that's true, Agent Mulder. But your record shows. . ." 

"My record shows that I'm keeping up. But. . ." 

"If you're feeling job stress, perhaps you should see a therapist." 

Mulder stared at the cool man, unbelievingly. "If you'd actually read the fucking request I sent, you'd have seen that I *am* seeing a therapist." 

"Agent Mulder, the fact of the matter is that there are few men who can do what you do, not as well as you. There are a myriad of facts that a good profiler must keep up with and be able to correlate and synthesize. Your intelligence combined with your incredible memory provide all the necessary ingredients. You simply are one of the best analysts it's ever been my privilege to watch." 

"And it's driving me crazy!" Mulder closed his eyes. "I want out. I have got to get out." 

"No. I'm sorry, Mulder." Thompson's voice was kindly. "I wish I could give you a way out. But there are twelve of you. Just twelve. You catch the most depraved killers found in our nation today. Your work. . .this Monty Props thing you did over the summer. . .it's brilliant. They're going to be talking about that monograph for the next thirty years." 

"I took showers in my suits, trying to get the bad smells and bad tastes out of my system," Mulder muttered. "When I went to bed at night, I would see the graves he dug, negatives on my eyelids to stare at as I fell asleep." 

"Fox." Thompson's voice was now gentle. "I'll approve a couple or three weeks of paid leave. You can go somewhere, decompress. Get rid of the stress. In a few weeks, you'll feel so much better you won't recognize yourself." 

"I don't want a vacation. I want out." 

"I'm sorry, Fox. But I can't lose my most valuable resource." 

Mulder stared at Thompson, his eyes glazed like those of a deer shot by a hunter. "You're killing me. Bit by bit. You have to know what's happening to me. One day I'll take my gun and I'll put it in my mouth. And I won't blink when I pull the trigger." 

Thompson took a long, shuddering breath. 

"I'm sorry, Agent Mulder. This conversation is over." 

"You MotherFucker," Mulder muttered. "Do you know what it was like for me after Oklahoma? Do you?" 

"I said this conversation is over." 

"I had a fucking nursemaid for five months. I woke up screaming every fucking night. Screaming and it took hours, fucking hours to calm down! I saw a therapist: he's not on my fucking jacket. I saw a therapist, and at first he wouldn't even see me longer than fifteen minutes at a time! I was that severely impaired." Mulder's eyes now smoldered with a deep, white-hot fire. "I kept a behavioral notebook. Do you want to know what kinds of things were in it?" 

"Agent Mulder, leave my office this instant!" 

"Things like `Ten things I can do for myself that I couldn't do last week. . .things like: shave or be trusted not to smash a glass and hurt myself with it!'" Mulder closed his eyes. "I worked so hard, I worked too fucking hard for you to throw it all away." 

That said, he turned from the red faced, standing Thompson and left the office. Stood in the bullpen staring at everyone, the techs and the secretaries. Knew they had heard. Wondered what they were making of it. 

Knew he had to get out of this somehow. Somehow he had to get free. Before the warm Gulf waters reached out and claimed him as they had claimed Jon and Meyers and now Sam. Before the dust across the sere plains of Oklahoma came in the night and choked him to death. 

Continued in part 41............................ 

=========================================================================== 

From: livengoo@tiac.net Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative Subject: NEW* Oklahoma 41/41 NC-17 Date: 1 Mar 1996 03:35:49 GMT 

Oklahoma (Part 41/41) By Amperage and Livengoo Copyright October, 1995 

International Readers: No third season spoilers Rating: NC-17 for language and violence 

Fox Mulder and the X-Files are the creation and intellectual property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen, and Fox Broadcasting. The FBI is the property of the US Government. Oklahoma and Louisiana and Texas belong to exactly who you think they'd belong to, and everything else belongs to Amperage and Livengoo. 

That's it. Thanks for coming along on the ride, everyone! Goo ____________________ 

Jack Averman didn't know what had snapped him awake. The second time the phone's jangling bell broke the stillness he shut his eyes in relief, swallowed the lump in his throat and stretched a sweat-slick hand to grab the receiver. Control forced his breathing to a natural rate, but his heartbeat would have to slow on its own. 

"Hello?" Something in his voice brought a chuckle from his caller. 

"I wake you up? Getting old, Averman, if you let her put you to sleep already." 

"Mulder?" He dug his feet into the sheets and shoved, scooting his ass up until his back rested against the headboard. When he flicked on the bedside lamp his eyes hurt for a moment. 

"You're lucky. I already wore out all the decent ones in the region. You got me between rounds one and two." 

The dry laugh echoed through the phone again. "Think you can put off terrorizing the locals for a day or two?" 

The air suddenly felt close and hot, and the ex-marine drew hard to get a breath. His shiver had nothing to do with cold as Mulder's voice combed fingers through his guts. He had to work to keep his tone light. "Sure. When are you coming?" 

"I've got a flight booked for Oklahoma City in two days. I need to talk with you." 

Averman grabbed an old envelope off the nightstand and clicked the point out on a pen. "Go ahead. Which flight?" 

 

Oklahoma City International Airport was bustling in spite of the oil bust, and Averman had to crane to see through the crowds. He almost didn't see him at first. 

The man who walked up to him was wary, and met his "Hey there," with a self-deprecating, sardonic grin. The arrogant, hostile bastard of almost two years before wasn't even a flicker in the back of this man's eyes. 

"Mulder. You look good." The hand he shook was dry, with a firm grip. He wouldn't let Averman take his suitcase. 

"Considering how I looked the last time you saw me, I could be dying of cancer and I'd look good." At least the grin was familiar. The younger man's eyes scanned the crowded concourse automatically, distractedly, as they wove through the business fare travelers and a few mothers with shrieking children. He could see the nervous way Mulder's jaw clenched every so often, and waited until they could feel the sometimes-draft of hot, April air that rolled through the electric doors before he asked. 

"What's this about?" Grinned. "You need a job, or something?" 

Mulder's snort was audible in spite of the noise echoing under the vaulted ceiling. "Or something. Let's get to some place that has beer. And serves something more than peanuts to eat." 

"Sure. What are you in the mood for?" Remembering salads, rice. Gatorade. 

Mulder had pulled up to a sudden stop and was staring out at the sunlight, hot and brilliant, on a state he probably didn't even like to think about. Loosened a necktie graced by winged, pink pigs. "I never did get a chance to really enjoy those famous ribs. Let's live dangerously." 

"Knowing you, that should be easy." 

 

Mulder licked barbecue sauce from a fingertip with the concentrated deliberation of a scholar considering Paradise Lost. And grinned at paradise regained. The heaped platter in front of him steamed gently as he reached over to lift a frosted mug of beer. Hefted it to Averman, eyebrow raised in ironic salute. 

"To old times. . . " 

"May they never come again." The older man completed the toast with fervor and the *chink* of glass on glass. Mulder grinned and tore a rib off the rack, stripping it with the enthusiasm of all yankees who finally got to eat real food. Averman waited, let the analyst work his way to the topic in his own good time. 

Mulder had a stack of naked bones on the empty plate before he slowed and looked up. Jack solemnly leaned forward, poured the last of the pitcher for them both, topping their mugs with amber and froth. Beads of water dripped to the table when he lifted the mug again. 

"To old friends and old lovers. . . " 

Mulder stared at his glass then. It was a long moment before he finally reached over, lifted his glass back. "I wish some were here and I'm glad some aren't." Hazel eyes stared back, almost challenging. 

"I heard about Rodriguez. How's Jenni taking it?" Averman looked in his beer, not wanting to see the look on Mulder's face. 

"As well as you could expect. Not very. The Senator finally got them to bury him in Arlington. His family's Catholic, and a suicide. . ." 

"Jesus. The poor girl. Poor both of them. Didn't anyone see it coming?" Cold twist of guts. The past doesn't really let go, you just hide it under stuff. Averman pictured the woman he'd met, pretty and blonde, with laugh lines that pain had etched too deep. 

"He ate his gun, Averman. As far as I'm concerned, the bastards who put him back on duty like that pulled the trigger." Jack startled, looked at cold, bitter eyes across from him. "They sent him out on a kidnap/homicide, Jack. A child pornography ring case. Any idiot could see what that would do to him. This wasn't really suicide. It was murder." 

"I. . . " There weren't words to hold and say the things behind his teeth. He swallowed, and Mulder nodded. 

"Yeah. I know. I won't let them do it to me." 

"The bastards've got you back on the same-old-same-old?" Felt queasy and took a long draw on his beer, so his gut might have a reason to feel cold. 

The grin that answered him was spooky. Wide and feral and humorless. "They're trying. And that's what I need your help on . . ." 

Jack could feel his puzzlement register, saw the amused answering look. 

"I want you to back me up. I'm going to go see Guiterriez. I want him to sign the papers." 

Averman's elbow settled in a pool of beer. He didn't care, the cold wet didn't matter. He was staring into Fox Mulder's hazel eyes, trying to decide if he was crazy or if Mulder had finally dropped his last marble. 

"And you want me to. . . ?" 

"Back me up in there. Stand behind me, get jittery and nervous and make sure no one slaps a nice, white coat on me. Averman, they put Frito right around the bend and they'll do it to me if they get a chance. They won't let me transfer, I've tried. The only hope I've got to stay sane is to prove I'm crazy." 

 

 

The waiting room wasn't full, but it felt crowded. People, nervous and jittery or withdrawn, sat in soothingly overstuffed chairs, staring through Impressionist prints and walls in neutral shades. Mulder didn't recall noticing the prints before. He sat on the edge of a chair that tried to lure him deeper and rolled his palms back and forth over each other, studying the men and women around him. 

The receptionist had stared at him for a long time when he and Averman had walked in. Taken his name and scurried away into a warren of hallways that Mulder could not remember. He felt the currents change in the room and looked up from his hands, pressed tight together, to see Guiterriez watching him. The stocky man scanned the room, whispered a few words to his receptionist and nodded, then retreated again. 

Two whispered conferences. Mulder sat back, watched a slender, careworn woman slouch past him. Then forty-five minutes of quiet and nerves, feeling Averman page through endless magazines on modern maturity and fishing, none of which Mulder believed he was reading. The phone rang in a hushed, electronic buzz every few minutes, startling the four people left waiting. Their nerves jangled with a ferocity of emotion that overwhelmed the soft, plush chairs and soothing colors and music. When Averman tossed a glossy magazine onto a table the slick paper hissed in the quiet. Mulder watched him stride over to a rack on the wall, missing the footsteps that were swallowed whole by dense carpet. The senior agent's boots left deep, dark crescents marring the rug. 

A click and a soft swish of wood on carpet snapped all the eyes in the room to it, tension crackling static in the dry air. A woman, dressed well but not richly, scanned them, then fixed her eyes on Mulder, beckoned him. He felt Averman at his back, a pattern in the static of the room. All sound was drunk by soft pile and wallpaper. "Doctor will see you now. . . " Mulder smiled at the rote formula, wondered if Guiterriez had ever tried to get her to change it. She walked brusquely, shoulders barely moving, leading down a hall and through a dark, lambent rosewood door. The brushed steel of the handle sparked with electricity, then felt smooth and cool under Mulder's fingers. He left the door for Averman to close. 

The analyst couldn't see Guiterriez' face. The man's mass was dark against the brilliance of blue sky, and the fresh green that was Oklahoma's own in the spring, before summer's brutal heat drove the sap into hiding and seared the land with its kiss. A shiver ran up and down Mulder's spine, air conditioning raising goose flesh, and memory raising ghosts. The maroon and dove gray furniture was the same, and the heavy, rosewood tables and desk. Mulder let his hand drift across the back of the plush chair, watching the physician step away from his window. Light showed placid features and alert, wary eyes. The agent didn't wait for the offer, but settled back into the cool, velvet plush, letting his arm rest across the back, letting his service weapon gleam malevolent black among all the muted and subtle shades of this place. Guiterriez' eyes flickered to it. Averman stepped up close behind the chair, and Mulder smiled at the electric charge that filled the air now, even though all the static was gone. 

"Agent Mulder. I must confess, I am surprised to see you again." 

Mulder felt the Spanish cadences, weighted, drumming from the walls. He'd heard that voice in nightmares for close to two years. It sent cold ripples over his skin as he watched Guiterriez watching him. The silence stretched, long and dissonant after the last syllable had been smothered by the false comfort of the place. 

Fabric rustled behind him as Averman shifted. Guiterriez' eyes flicked up at the sound, then back. Mulder let his eyes close a little, tilted his head, just a bit. And smiled. The psychiatrist's face was still shadowed, but the window's light picked out the flex of muscle in cheek and neck as his jaw clenched and released. The agent sighted and leaned forward, letting his elbows rest on his knees with too little weight to be relaxed. Guiterriez' teeth shone in a grim smile as he settled on the small couch facing Mulder. The younger man felt his pupils dilate and contract almost painfully as the doctor's shadow played past him. 

"Did you visit simply to play games of psychology with me, Agent Mulder? I have never doubted your skill with those." 

The profiler snorted, let his smile grow. Leaned back and casually hooked the heavy automatic from the holster at his waist. Averman stepped so close he could hear the brush of clothing against the couch. The physician across from him was very, very still as Mulder dropped the ugly weapon onto the table between them, enjoying the clatter it made. Guiterriez' eyes stayed locked on his face. 

"I think you and I will both be more comfortable if I'm not wearing that." The doctor began to relax, and Mulder leaned forward, elbows on knees again, enjoying the sudden stillness that returned to the other man's stance. Lips pulled tight above a well-trimmed beard, and the dark eyes snapped. 

"I think I would be more comfortable if you left. I think, Agent Mulder, that there is nothing I can do for you." 

"I'm sure you'd be more comfortable if I left, but I'm equally sure that there is something you can do for me." Knit his fingers together and hooked his thumbs under his chin, trying to ignore how cold the tips of his fingers felt, and the oily sweat that made them slippery. Guiterriez leaned forward, and the sunlight was blocked by a cloud. Mulder studied the flush on dark skin and forced his own breathing to stay slow and regular. 

"I tried to help you before, Agent Mulder. There are many psychiatrists in Washington. Please say what you want to say and leave, before I am forced to call my assistant to. . . " 

"It won't take long. I want you to do what you should have done in the first place." 

A puzzled look and half open mouth met his gallows grin. Mulder felt the bones under his skin, could almost smell his own terror. 

"All I want from you, Dr. Guiterriez, is signed papers attesting that, in your opinion, as of the date you first saw me, that you would attest that involuntary hospitalization was required." His mouth was dry, and he had to fight to get the words clear of his tongue. Guiterriez swarthy features pulled in confusion, then consternation, giving way to anger. 

"What are you asking me? Why? You are no fool. Do not mistake me for one." The Spanish accent was thicker. "What do you intend to prove with this little exercise?" He was on his feet, pacing back to the window, back where Mulder could not read his face anymore, but he didn't have to now. The doctor's voice held all the anger and confusion his features would have shown. 

"You don't need to worry, Dr. Guiterriez." Mulder let his own voice drop into the soothing tones taught for clinical practice. Saw the psychiatrist stiffen with recognition. "I have no intention of bringing any sort of malpractice claim against you." 

"Your grounds. . . " 

"I said I didn't intend to bring a claim. However, I was a patient of yours, and I have witnesses that you stated that I was at risk, and in need of involuntary hospitalization. In point of fact, I required hospitalization for emergency treatment shortly thereafter. Agent Averman can support that." Saw Guiterriez' eyes bounce, and could infer Averman's nod of support. "You were aware that I was at risk, and I was your patient. You had a duty of care and would be held to the standards of your specialty. In any court of law that would be grounds for malpractice, Doctor." Mulder leaned in, shifted balance and was suddenly standing. "I want those papers, Dr. Guiterriez." 

The voice was somewhere between a hiss and a whisper. "Why? What would you do with them? I do not mistake that you would seek what I would recommend for you. . . " 

Mulder chuckled. "Have you been in touch with the FBI since you saw me? I'm certain you must have been contacted. I know you told Dr. Rodriguez and Agent Averman." 

"Your service weapon had to be removed on my authority. I prescribed medication for you. Of course I was in contact. . . " Blustering now. Defensive and aggressive. Mulder fought back the smile. 

"Then I'll want copies of all those records. And the statement as well." 

"Not until I know why. This is intimidation, illegal. . ." 

Mulder sighed. He felt like far more than two years had passed. Oklahoma's sunshine made him want his sunglasses, even in this protected place. "Doctor, this may be hard to understand, but I need that statement. I have witnesses. If I do not leave here today with that statement, I can assure you that I will bring a malpractice suit against you. I suspect you are quite aware of what happened to me while I was technically under your care, and I doubt you would want to go to court against the man who helped stop the Baby Butcher." A low sound, barely audible, made him look at Guiterriez. He had to force himself not to look away. "You know and I know how it will look when I get up there and tell them about the pain and suffering of the mental instability you failed to treat, and detail the hallucinations of the killer's dreams." God, his hands were shaking. He kept them close to his sides and fought not to ball them into fists. It was a relief that Guiterriez had moved across the room, otherwise Mulder was sure the doctor would have smelled sour fear sweat. 

Averman cleared his throat, and the sound made both men jump. "Dr. Guiterriez, I really regret that this is proving so stressful for you both. But Agent Mulder's right. You told me and Rodriguez and Mulder, here, that you thought he should be in a secure environment and were about willing to sign papers to arrange for it. And you never carried through. I'm sure you saw the news. ." 

Guiterriez stared at the two of them, hands flat on his desk. His jaw worked and Mulder almost imagined he could hear the teeth grind. His stomach was balled tight and he could feel shooting pain in his own shoulders from the knots of his muscles, and wanted more than anything right then to turn tail and run. Never have to hear Guiterriez' damned Spanish accent and arrogant tones again. 

But he didn't have that choice, and he stood and stared, hard and cold, at the psychiatrist. And felt no triumph when the man deflated. Felt only a tired, lost dread when he sagged into a chair and pulled forms from his desk, and letterhead, and began to write. 

It took a frighteningly short amount of time to complete his work. Dr. Miguel Guiterriez finished the words that could have locked Mulder away and it had taken him less than twenty minutes. The paper shook in his hands when he held it out to Mulder. His face was pale under the tan, and the tired bags were dark under his eyes. 

"Will you tell me at least why you want this so badly, Agent Mulder? You have what you want. . . " 

Mulder stared at him. Felt his shirt cling to his skin under his jacket. Turned and walked back across that thick, pile carpet to pick up his weapon. The automatic was cold, and the skin of his fingers felt sensitive and sore when they brushed the metal, brushed fabric. And ran through all the possibilities and threats, finding so few. . . The one hold Guiterriez had over him was in his hands, poison that, used carefully, would save him. 

"I want it because without this, I will be in Behavorial Sciences until I actually do need to be hospitalized." He hesitated, weighing his words. "I know what you think, but you're wrong. I do know what's real. I knew when I saw you what was real. And I know that if I stay in the BSU I will go mad. They won't let me leave. I've tried. All I want is to find the truth, but the FBI, or whoever the hell decides what happens to me, doesn't care. I tried to transfer." He smiled at Guiterriez. A warm, genuine smile for once. He had wanted so much to talk then, still wanted to. And about this he would. 

"They want to keep me locked up in VICAP until I'm screaming the nightmares of serial killers asleep and awake and until I don't know where I end and they begin anymore. But they made a mistake. They let you talk with me. They let someone make this decision." He shook the papers in his hand. Guiterriez was watching him fascinated and horrified. "I can only use this once, but I only need it once. This is my key out of hell." He turned and smiled, a false, bright, cordial smile. "Thank you, Dr. Guiterriez. You've helped me more than you'll ever know." 

Mulder's pulse was hammering so hard he was sure the other two in the room could see it, hell, hear it. He took the half step back, feeling the papers crinkle in his hand, and his legs locked. Knees still and teeth clenched, he forced himself to turn his back on Guiterriez. His ears ached, listening for the click of a call button, the step of an attendant in the hall. Averman was holding the door open and nodded reassuringly to him. 

"Agent Mulder. . . " The voice stopped him cold. Sent a tremor through his legs, and he felt his heart stop for a moment. Dry mouthed, he turned back to stare at Guiterriez' expressionless, dark eyes. "I. . . You say I helped you. That thought frightens me. I hope. . . I hope one day someone gives you the help you think you don't need. Until then, be careful." 

Fox Mulder stared back at the physician. Swallowed hard against the painful lump in his throat. "Thank you, Doctor. I'll keep that in mind." Spun and this time didn't stop for anything. He didn't remember leaving, didn't recall cool halls or pastels and paintings, but suddenly hard light was striking his face, forcing his eyes shut, and he stopped, blinded, as Averman caught up with him. 

Dark, dark glass and metal cool against his face, earpieces snug over his ears, and he could finally take off his jacket here, where everyone's shirt was stained dark with sweat and no one would know. No one would question. When he could open his eyes again, he found the grizzled man next to him watching him. His eyes were wonderful, clear and blue and concerned, but never wavering, not looking for tiny hints and clues and betrayals. Mulder wiped his nose, feeling a prickle behind his eyes, feeling the heat of the sun on his back. 

"Was it worth it, son?" 

The laugh was short, and it caught in his throat. "I hate it when you call me son. Hell, I hate being called that, period." 

The answering snort was loud, too normal to exist there, then. "C'mon. You look like you could really use a beer now. Or scotch. I know I could, after waiting for that shrink to call the troops and march you out of there. But you didn't answer my question." 

"Worth it?" The asphalt of the parking lot was soft under their feet, and it was hard to see their car for the spears of light from chrome. Mulder felt his mind wandering to the coast, to the Potomac where the cherry blossoms painted the tidal pool in sweet, foreign shades and the Vineyard, where spring winds and storms whipped the graceful sea oats and whelks and conchs washed up on pebbly beaches. "Yes, Averman. It was worth it. This," he shook the sheaf of paper in his hand, "this says that I needed help and the FBI colluded in seeing that I didn't get it. Colluded in keeping me from medical assistance in a psychiatric emergency. With this. . . with this I have them over a barrel." 

"What do you expect to get?" 

He laughed, short and relieved, a real laugh nonetheless. "It'll get me out of Behavioral. There are these cases I've wanted to work on, stuff everyone else has abandoned." 

"Those X-Files you had with you?" 

"Hunh. Yeah. Those. I looked through them and. . . they're pretty strange. Lots of campfire stories and crap, but some of it. . ." He bit his lip. 

"I've seen a few of them. The ones you had before. You were gonna say that some of it's like what happened to your sister, weren't you? What happened to. . . Sam." 

Mulder nodded, a sharp little motion. "Yes. And I think there are questions there to be answered. That somebody needs to answer." 

"And that's what you're going to do?" 

"Yeah. That's what these let me do." He grinned widely, threw his head back and laughed a long, long time. "These will get me out of hell, Averman. But first, I need to get the hell out of Oklahoma." 

 

 

May 12, 1989 Hoover Building Washington, D.C. 

He knew all the nooks and crannies of Violent Crime. His first posting, of course. Reggie Pardue was still here. A SAC now, not an ASAC. How many newbies at G-10 status, get ushered around by an ASAC? At one time, Mulder had smiled to think of it. Now it caused a thin line to crease across his forehead. He headed straight for the Assistant Director's office He knew that all the supervisors of various sections of Violent Crimes would be there, to welcome a sheep back into the fold. 

He was right. There was Reggie in a corner, and Martin beside him. Others, like a pantheon of greek gods, waiting to usher a fledgling into Mount Olympus. He didn't know Oliver, the Director, very well, but well enough. 

"Agent Mulder. Have a seat." Of course, the hot spot. A chair right in front of Oliver's desk. 

"Agent Thompson wouldn't say anything about your sudden departure from his section, especially after your work on the Monty Props case." Oliver was staring at him. 

Mulder smiled. "He didn't want to let me out." 

"That's why I was wondering." 

Thompson hadn't told anyone about the committal papers from Guitteriez, then. Mulder would have to send him a bundt cake at Christmas. 

Mulder shrugged and remained silent. 

"Well, regardless, I'm glad to have you back. You'd progressed as far up the ladder as you could in Behavioral, you knew that. There are some extremely good opportunities for advancement in VCS." 

Mulder could feel Reggie's grin. Blue Flamer. I could cook a rack of baby back ribs on the blue flames shooting out of your ass, you son of a bitch. Mulder almost grinned. It would feel great to be back where he could kick Reggie's ass in softball on a more regular basis. 

"Yes sir." 

"I decided not to assign you until we'd spoken. Is there a particular area you're interested in working in?" "Actually, I'm really interested in just kind of skimming the unsolvable cases. Let me look through them, see what everyone else has done and see if I can get anywhere with them." 

Oliver's eyes were delighted with this. The Spooky probably could solve some of them and Oliver's ratings would go through the roof. 

"That's an unusual request, but I'd be thrilled to let you have it." 

And Fox Mulder would look like a miracle worker. He would rise, rise, rise up the ladder. 

"We'll get someone to find you a partner, someone to take under your wing." Oliver smiled. Mulder smiled. Oh yes, this could be a beautiful relationship all around. 

The End/The Beginning


End file.
